Russian Roulette
by TotemundTabu
Summary: Alfred Jones is a policeman, his purpose is clear and nothing can get in his way. At least, that's what he thought, before he entered in the "Matryoshka" and met Kiku. M for violence and sex in the next chapters. Ameripan, Rochu. Because of the dark/noir setting, Kiku's characterization may be a little close to Dark!Japan's.
1. Chapter 1

Omg, seriously. I have so many ideas, why I loose my time with the hardest to write? Oh, well, I guess I tried XD as ever, I love comments and they help me to improve. I am Italian, so there might be some mistakes, I hope I corrected them all but I am not sure. Ameripan, Rochu. Mature content. Every chapter title comes from a song.

_**Russian Roulette**_

_And you can see my heart- beating,_  
_you can see it through my chest._  
_Said I'm terrified but I'm not leaving._  
_..._  
_He says "close your eyes, sometimes it helps",_  
_And then I get a scary thought_  
_that he's here - means he's never lost._  
- Russian roulette, Rihanna

1# Revolver

It was one of those dark nights people set horror stories in, spooky ones, with ghosts and monsters. And vampires, not the sparkling kind.  
The black of the sky was thick, dense.  
And the street stank like rotting rubbish and alcoholics human wrecks.  
The old-fashioned, iron, lanterns outside the back of the restaurant were the only source of light, in that december evening, when even the moon seemed to have abandoned the city, in disgust.  
Alfred spit what was left of his cigarette, took a deep breath and got closer to the barely lit door; as he knocked, a thin, gentle girl appeared.  
The american almost didn't saw her face, when her voice trembled.  
"_Malenkaya_."  
Alfred gave a sigh.  
"Violette."  
The girl let him enter.  
Her figure seemed to be painted with a brush: her hair were dark as ink and her eyes big and kind.  
The thick smell of smoke, that permeated the purple walls, blended with a mixture of odours: alcohol, gunpowder, human warmth - the unpleasant kind.  
The bar was dimly lit. The lights were low, practically useless, to the point that Alfred struggled to trace the outlines and the presences around him.  
The girl scorted him to a little table, in the dark side of the bar, then asked, with her silky, soft voice, "What would you like to drink?"  
"What's your name?", he asked, lifting the look from his hat.  
She tried to keep politely smiling, but a little crack seemed to cross her eyes.  
"Oh. Meimei, sir, but everyone here calls me Taiwan."  
Alfred nodded.  
"So, Taiwan, could you please bring me a Blue Moon Martini?"  
"Sure.", she left, quietly.  
Alfred gave a quick look around: only a few people was still in the bar, all drunk, and, as he heard one of them commenting Meimei's thights, he quickly was able to decode the strange shiver in her eyes a few minutes before. He started to drink.  
The show started soon.  
On stage, the curtains - red like a fresh bruise - opened and he appeared on stage, sublime, like a slow and mellow music.  
Alfred's gaze was soon magnetized. Mesmerized, in a second.  
The first things he noticed - useless to lie - were the thighs: long, glabrous, who hardly seemed to be a man ones, and on which he wore blacks with patent leather stiletto boots.  
A pair of shorts PVC, so close-fitting to look like the skin itself dyed black. The belt was thickest of them.  
A fabulous ass.  
Alfred was bewitched.  
The waist was thin, the chest smooth, only partially covered by a waistcoat, at his neck there was studded collar from which hung a small chain, and then - oh. The face.  
Enchanting.  
Alfred found himself with his jaw on the ground and the most idiot expression in the world. He felt like a Tex Avery wolf in front of a sexy Little Red Riding Hood.  
A little face bisque doll by: flawless skin, lips like petals, and two hollow, black holes, eyes.  
His hair was short, a helmet, blacks as sin. Above them, a black police hat.  
The dancer took it between his fingers, covering a little the face, as he moved, with cunning skill, sides and bottom.  
Suddenly, the music changed from a 40s lento to a dramatically faster Madonna hit.  
That body...  
Oh, Jesus Christ, Statue of Liberty and all the stars on the American flag.  
As he moved, a long silver earing at his lobe danced too, catching and reflecting the lights- but his eyes, no, they didn't.  
They seemed to suck it away, the life.  
He couldn't say anything about his love, but just the glance of that boy was a revolver.  
Meimei came again, Alfred made a gesture, calling them, with his fingers.  
"Yes, sir?"  
"Who's that boy?"  
She blinked, "Oh? He's a new one. He started friday."  
"...well, guess I came the right week."  
Meimei smiled, "He's not confirmed yet, though, he still has to meet the owner of the club."  
Alfred suddenly remember why he was there.  
Right.  
He gave a forced smile, "Well, I cheer for him."  
The girl looked at him again: that blond, tall, kind man seemed different from the usual fauna of the club, but - she reminded herself - in the end, everbody seems different at first sight.  
She went back to the dark wooden counter, where Leon was calling her for serving two whisky.  
The asian boy's waistcoat already fell on the ground, he kept moving, like poisonous ivy at the pole.  
Alfred kept staring, until, unpredictably, the dancer looked back at him, then the american suddenly lowered his head. He felt caught red-handed, which was stupid, considering the place he was in, he was supposed to look.  
And he wasn't a stupid virgin puella.  
But, as pathetic as if may sounded, that boy was hypnotic.  
Flexing on his knees, he started to move the sway and stream the pelvis in that, malicious, delicious, way. He was still looking at Alfred.  
Straight.  
Wasn't he supposed to be there for work? Why was he- mh, enjoying the show?  
As the dancer put hands in his shorts, making Alfred shiver, a bullet flew at a few millimetres from his head.  
"Shit!"  
"Jones! - screamed someone - He's Jones!"  
"Double shit."  
He snapped, slipped under the table, slipping between the wooden legs. drew his pistol from its sheath on his ankle.  
A long icy chill.  
Breathe in, shoot. Easy, is not it?  
The yelling man found himself on his back, his neck pierced, that draw a disgusting dark red downpour. Another one took his gun and fired.  
Alfred overturned the table, hoping to be an effective shield, but the western movies were quite misleading on this subject, soon it was reduced to a Swiss cheese of wood and plastic.  
"It's not polite to continue to make holes in my table, guys!"  
The finger on the trigger, another - quick - breath.  
Fire.  
Before he could finish the bullets, darkness descended.  
"That's all we needed: a blackout!"  
He heard two whistles, some moans and then someone taking him by the scruff. He tried to turn around and escape, but got a kick in the stomach.  
Then he felt the ground under his feet failing and collapsed. A hole? A trapdoor?  
He was still in complete darkness. A quick clack, over his head.  
Then... something in his mouth.  
He thought of a trigger, but as far as cold, no, it was not metal.  
He tried, stupidly, to blink, as if he could suddenly see.  
"Ssht.", challenged him to a whisper.  
"Who are you?"  
"The one who saved your ass, I guess."  
The accent was strange. Not new yorker.  
"Who are you?"  
"Does it matter? - a brief silence - Follow me."  
Alfred had to obey, crawling, followed the man who had pulled into the pit. An unpleasant, pungent smell of concrete and the rats flooded the nose. The air was humid and hot, so that the minutes passed down there seemed endless and Alfred had to swallow several times panic, silently, and with it the fear of death or suffocated or buried alive.  
When the sewage smell became unbearable, the voice was heard again.  
"Here we go."  
A thin thread of light, if so it could be called the damp dark blue of the night outside.  
But Alfred did not have time to enjoy it, with a childlike sigh of relief, that the little moon out there lit up the soft body of his savior.  
"You ...!"  
"Shut up, damn it."  
Bitchy, hottie.  
Indeed, seen up close was even more beautiful, breathtaking.  
The dancer slipped out of the hole and held open the manhole cover, so that Alfred was able to come out. Alfred looked up from the ground, embarrassed, sucking his lips a little.  
Maybe it was the right time to say something.  
Anything.  
When he opened his mouth, however, was paralyzed. The boy in front of him rubbing his hands nervously on his arms, puffing with clenched teeth.  
Well, it was December.  
Alfred took off his bomber jacket and handed it to her.  
The Japanese frowned.  
"Did you take me for your girlfriend?"  
"Huh I ..."  
Damn, he was rude as a kick in the family jewels.  
The boy gave him another look, eyeing up and down a few times. He seemed awkward, somehow.  
Alfred felt slightly softened.  
"Take it, you're in your underwear."  
The dancer reached out to grab his coat when gunshots and screams seemed to wake him up. He took Alfred's arm and began to run between the narrow houses in the neighborhood.  
Some puddle splashed noisily.  
He shivered, until they saw a small bus, probably the last of that night, and after they found out not to be seen, they went on it. Any destination was better than a hole in the gut.  
Crouching in the back of the bus, half hidden by the seats, both breathed a sigh of relief. Almost without realizing it, exchanged a shiny look- the eastern smiled in return, almost infected.  
The American swallowed with a nervous giggle and said, "Alfred, but you can call me Al"  
He saw him flinch.  
The boy inhaled, not knowing whether or not to say his name.  
"I may also call you 'dancer of the bar infamous' forever, but it is quite long.", he chuckled.  
"Kiku."  
"Huh?"  
"Kiku," he repeated.  
His voice now sounded suddenly lower, collected, almost mild in its calm.  
"I like that."  
Kiku seemed annoyed, "It is you are the one who have to like it."  
"Have you ever been told that you're bitchy?"  
"Only without the 'y'."  
There was a moment of silence, during which Alfred bit his lips, silenced and embarrassed. He scratched his neck, feeling still hot and sore where Kiku had grabbed him to drag it out of the _Matryoshka_.  
He gave the boy a clumsy and shy look.  
"... you saved my life."  
"Tell me something I do not know."  
... irritating. Deadly, irritating.  
Alfred turned, puffing, staring out the window, as it began to rain. Kiku glanced at him, drew a sheepish sigh.  
"You're welcome."  
Alfred smiled without looking at him. Then slipped him the bomber.  
Kiku took it, hunching down down into the shoulders.  
He seemed to want to say something, but in the end he remained silent. Alfred was watching him, a little amused and a little excited, in that silly way that belongs to a twelve year old, not to a grown man just escaped a shootout.  
"... have you ... a place, like ... you know, where to stay?"  
"After I saved your life? - he blinked - I doubt it."  
"Oh. - Alfred took heart, winning not to look in those blacks wells that were his eyes - Why don't you, uh, stay with me?"  
Kiku blinked again.  
"I-I mean, no, emh, well ... at my place. Stay at my place. Overnight, nothing ... nothing involved."  
Kiku raised an eyebrow, "I guessed."  
Alfred let out a smile, without notice. As soon as the American recognized where they were, mentally calculated the route, and at the first stop, got out, gesturing for Kiku to follow.  
With a heavy sigh, the Japanese asked himself if he was doing something wrong.  
But, of course, he could not return to his home at that point.  
His plan ... everything went to hell.  
When he was in the street, only then, he seemed seriously to realize his clothing, and Alfred seemed to have totally forgotten. The Japanese sank a little, hoping not to drive too much attention. The only good thing about four in the morning, when there's freezing cold and you're walking around in high heels and PVC shorts, is that there are no happy families with little kids around.  
He raised his face, when Alfred called him.  
"Kiku, hungry?"  
"Not really ..."  
His stomach contradicted him with a roar.  
The boy seemed to sink into embarrassment.  
Alfred did not seem bothered at all, on the contrary, he seemed nearly happy.  
"There is a Wendy's nearby. Not a Burger King, but you know what they say: A contented mind is a perpetual feast."  
Kiku still struggling to figure out if what I had before was an overgrown child or one of those reckless fools that life - without a valid reason - equipped with a boundless fortune.  
"I have no money with me."  
"I sensed by the absence of pockets!"  
When they entered the fast food, a small bell welcomed them, Kiku hoped not only to attract attention. Obviously, it was not possible, but not because of him.  
"So ... - Alfred put a finger under his chin and muttered - then, two large fries, a Baconator, a coke and a ... Dave's Hot 'N Juicy 3/4 lb triple ..."  
"What?"  
"... Mh, maybe even a double too."  
Kiku felt nauseous.  
"What do you want, Kiku?" Alfred asked, brightly.  
The Japanese snorted, blushing slightly.  
"... a caramel apple frosty parafait." he stammered.  
Once seated, Alfred slurped, like a dog with his bowl, finishing nearly in an instant. Kiku chewed slowly and sucked a little his dessert, watching warily and perplexed the other man.  
"You ... what are you, exactly?"  
Alfred blinked.  
"Captain America, a gunslinger, a moron with super strength ...?"  
"Oh, do you like Captain America too?"  
"No. - Kiku cut short - A cop?"  
"Sort of."  
"Like what?"  
"... like one who has lost his job. - he darkened, looking down - Stubbornness, they say."  
Kiku did not know what to say, finding himself puzzled and speechless.  
"Anyway. - Alfred smiled again - It's no good crying over spilt milk."  
"I suppose so."  
"And you?"  
Kiku frowned eyebrows, mixing the parfait and ignoring the question, "...why was an ex-cop in that place?"  
Alfred hesitated.  
The dancer fumed annoyed with impatience, "I saved your life, I should at least know why you risked it."  
"... I was dealing with a case, but they put pressure on the district to shut my mouth. - whispered - I want to show that I was right."  
Kiku felt an icy shiver percorrergli the spine.  
He swallowed.  
"... you're on the trail of Ivan Braginsky."  
"Yeah."  
Kiku looked down, silently chewing a piece of candy apple.  
He was silent, his blacks holes seemed endless.

* * *

What Alfred had, it could not exactly be called an attic or a super-luxury apartment. A handful of square meters, low lighting, a sofa dating from the Pleistocene. There was a big bulky television, with, alongside, a decent little pile of crisp packets, a tower of Babel of superhero-themed DVD. And.  
"A poster of "On the Waterfront "?"  
A nervous giggle and creaky.  
"Oh yeah, well, just pretend you haven't seen it."  
Kiku raised an eyebrow. It was probably the only thing in the whole apartment that he should not have been ashamed of.  
"Is it your favorite movie?"  
Alfred breathed in and then shooked his head nervously, going to the kitchen, pretending to search for something cold to drink.  
"No, no, nothing like that."  
"... you've got the poster."  
"It 's just ... - buried his face in the fridge - I like it, that's all, but it's not my favorite movie. That is Superman. The 1978 one."  
Kiku grinned, "So, what, you have a soft spot for Marlon Brando?"  
The Japanese overheard Alfred protesting and rooting from behind the door of the taxi-yellow refrigerator.  
"No, I like those two movies and that's it."  
A strange gleam shone in the eyes of Kiku, when he realized.  
"Oh my God, you cry watching "On the Waterfront "!"  
Got him.  
Hit, sunk.  
Alfred blushed and emerged, his face fiery red, the fridge and yelled, "Stop it!"  
But what I saw was definitely worthing be teased.  
The Japanese was practically rolling on the floor, clutching his stomach. Despite all: intoxicating beauty, leather boots up to the thigh, his bare chest, he seemed like a child. Candid, innocent.  
Completely pure.  
As newly fallen snow.  
But, and trembled at the thought Alfred, he knew that it could not be.  
Who was really Kiku?  
"You're cute, when you laugh."  
Kiku stopped, glaring coldly.  
Alfred came closer, leaned against the table a couple of beers and told him to serve himself, the Japanese just stared at him, without arguing nor daring, without making any sound nor betraying any emotion.  
The blond opened a can and took a sip, without taking his eyes from that silky body.  
It looked like a Madame Butterfly. Masculine, of course.  
Not that Alfred knew a lot about it, actually: the opera was one of the quirks of his adoptive father. But, somehow, Kiku reminded him of that beautiful, sweet, pastel coloured painting they had in the living room.  
Kiku's lips were thin and soft, seemed drawn with a brush.  
Everything, to tell the truth, about him seemed a work of art, something outlined, chiseled and refined. Perfect.  
But .. not completely alive.  
Alfred felt somehow scared, but deeply mesmerized.  
"So."  
"Mh."  
Alfred coughed a little, "Do you, emh, dance?"  
"I'm not an harlot.", Kiku hissed.  
"...Harlot? Gosh, are you old inside or what?"  
Kiku gave a death glare and then a sigh.  
Was it even ueful to speak? Would have it changed something? In the end, weren't they both just powerless?  
"I was there for the same purpose of yours."  
Alfred backed away slightly, in his eyes a sinister light.  
"Ivan."  
"He killed my brother."  
He didn't know why. He didn't know how.  
He didn't have to find the courage. He didn't have to give himself permission.  
He held Kiku. He simply did.  
Simply.  
Kiku remained unmoving, still, like the water of a dark, deep, lake. He swallowed a little, when he felt the American's warm breath on the surface of his skin, but he said nothing.  
That kind of human contact - so pure, so selfless - Kiku almost forgot how it felt.  
As the strong arms of Alfred made the hug tighter, the japanese boy simply landed his forehead on his shoulders.  
Alfred had the strange mix of smell of fried stuff and tobacco.  
Kiku wondered what his scent was.  
After some seconds, anyway, his asian education got the upper hand and the dancer started to feel embarassed and annoyed. Human contact was not exactly his cup of tea.  
Alfred kept his eyes on the pavement, "I am sorry for your brother..."  
"Thank you."  
Kiku didn't felt like talking anymore, his skin was electrified and he felt his throat bruised, like even the few words he said had hurt him to no end. Ha was close to say "Good night", but Alfred continued.  
"...you planned to kill him."  
It was a sussure, but full of anger.  
"Don't play the cop with me.", Kiku replied.  
How dare he judge him? How dare he?  
- wasn't he holding him just a few seconds before?  
His pain was acceptable only as long as he didn't seek for revenge?  
He stood up but Alfred catched him by his ankle, making him fall.  
"Assho...!"  
Before he could finish, he found Alfred over him.  
So close, he was scary.  
So close, he was scared.  
Kiku shivered, putting his hands on Alfred's chest, "Go away!"  
Alfred's eyes were... so blue. So. Stupidly blue.  
"You will get killed."  
Kiku blinked.  
"...what?"  
"If you try alone, you'll get yourself killed."  
Kiku swallowed, "Why do you care?"  
Alfred's look ran away, as he turned, hiding his face. He was a bright red.  
"Oh."  
Kiku whispered.


	2. Chapter 2

2# Bulletproof cupid

_My love's an iron ball,_  
_wrapped around your ankles._

_Yao smiled, quietly._  
_He didn't stood up, it was impossible, but tilted a little his head to the right, while his eyes shone a little._  
_"You've come."_  
_The man greeted him, with a small gesture of the had and taking his hat off. He placed it near his chest._  
_"I promised it.", his accent was strong accent._  
_His voice was deep and raw, like blood._  
_The man sat near Yao, took his chin in his fingers and drag him closer, kissing those soft lips. Yao smiled, against that mouth, caressed the cheeks, feeling the long scar under his fingertips, and sussurred._  
_"I love you."_  
_"More than your own life?"_  
_"More than my own life."_  
_He returned the kiss, feeling the strong, cold, body against him._  
_The man gave a dark grin, "Maybe we should go to the bedroom."_  
_"You'll have to carry me... - Yao replied and, when the man blinked, the chinese gave a deep sigh and pointed his right leg - You broke it. Remember?"_  
_"Oh."_  
_He didn't._  
_He never did._  
_Yao smiled, wided his arms, "Come, carry your bride."_  
_But he didn't._  
_The man held Yao's wrists and put him down, blocking his retreat ways, then bent down over him, like a vulture. His smile was thin and sharp._  
_Yao gasped, when he kissed him, his tongue was violent, like he actually wanted to suffocate the Chinese man._  
_"Ivan...", he almost cried._  
_The russian tore the red vest apart._  
_Oh, Yao was so beautiful._  
_That ivory, candid skin, his deep read mouth and those dark pearls. He was beautiful, and he belonged to him._  
_Yao's hand reached out and touched Ivan's face. His scar was like an abyss of sadness, it was singing a story that only the two of them knew._  
_"Ivan."_  
_He blinked, his breath heavier. The slight smell of vodka._  
_"Ivan."_  
_He swallowed, confused, dazed and astonished by Yao's smile. And a little tear in the right eye._  
_His wrists trembled, as the russian held them with more strengh._  
_"More than my own life.", Yao repeated._  
_Ivan kissed him again._  
_Yao panted, "...do you too?"_  
_"Me too."_  
_Ivan's whisper get lost in the air, while splaied Yao's legs and took a deep breath of the dark, solid fragrance of his privates. _  
_He bit it and Yao moaned._  
_"Ki..."_  
_"Ki?"_  
_"Kiku. Next room. Sleeping. - he pleaded - Take me in the bedroom."_  
_"Are you so ashamed of me?", Ivan roared, clenching his shiny teeth._  
_Yao shivered, "Oh no, it's just he's a kid, I don't want him to-"_  
_A moan._  
_A deeper one._  
_A choked cry._  
_Ivan put his fingers in his mouth, almost suffocating him, starting to move his hips. Yao tried to bite the hand, but it was enough difficult to breathe. He felt his own blood on his thights, his own flesh torn._  
_Asking Ivan to stop would have been useless._  
_Yao tried to do as less noise as possible, praying that his brother would have continued to sleep unaware._  
_He pleaded, begged, the gods._  
_But since when the gods help humans?_  
_As Ivan, with a strong, rough, bellow, came, Yao heard a little voice and then from Ivan mouth came a new, different, roar._  
_A dark one._  
_With an hiss, a wet bloodfall poured from Ivan's mouth. _  
_Yao trembled, his lips quivering, as he saw the edge of a katana coming out from Ivan's chest. He tried to get up, but the russian was quicker, he turned, with a furious glare and looked for the little kid._  
_He went too far, that time._  
_"...that was really a little overzealous from you."_  
_Kiku shook, falling with his knees on the floor._  
_The piercing, violet eyes seemed to cross his throat with a blade._  
_The kid mouthed something, but, as Ivan unsheathed his gun, Yao held him by his ankles; as the russian dropped, the chinese man shouted._  
_"Kiku, run! Run!"_  
_"Ya..."_  
_"Go!"_  
_The kid nodded and rushed out of the room and the house. His feet splashed into the dark, dirty puddles, his face was covered in tears. His voice seemed missing._  
_He heard a gunshot. No, two._  
_A scream._  
_A cracked, desperate, scream. _  
_Like glass shattered._  
_His little kimono stank of blood, rain, pee. He curled in a street corner, crying so much that his sighs was harder than the rain and sharp as daggers. His voice was broken too._  
_That was the first time, with his tired, reddish eyes, hiding in his clothes, that he called Yao 'brother'._  
_As he always asked him._  
_For years._

As Kiku opened his eyes, the purple ceiling of Alfred's apartment seemed bright like the sun. A big, fat, fluffy cat licked his face.  
Kiku groaned, annoyed.  
"What the..."  
"Ah! You met Elvis!"  
Kiku snorted, looking at the cat, while the - all but not small - beast rubbed himself madly against his clothes.  
"...did you fed him with Elvis sandwich?"  
"Uh? No, why?"  
"...nevermind."  
Alfred blinked, "What do you want for breakfast?"  
Kiku got up, scratching his head.  
"What hour is it?"  
"Half past... noon."  
"I slept way too much."  
"You are cute, when you sleep. - Alfred said, still in the kitchen, cooking something - So, what would you like: scrambled eggs, bacon? White rice?"  
"... tea."  
"And?"  
"And?"  
Alfred puffed, "You can't skip breakfast: it's the most important meal in the day!"  
Kiku raised an eyebrow. He hated third degrees when he just woke up.  
"Cookies?", Alfred tried.  
"Mh?"  
"You took a dessert yesterday, maybe you would like something sweet?"  
Well, it was a good observer, at least.  
Kiku smiled.  
"Cookies would be good."  
"I don't have tea, is coffe okay? Do you prefer milk? - then he stopped - Oh! I have chocolate milk! Japanese like flavoured milk, right?!"  
"...I thought it was a pretty American thing. - he admitted, walking in the kitchen and sitting at the table - Anyway, I am in the States since years, so you don't have to treat me like a freshly immigrant."  
Alfred's dish had a vulgar, and probably illegal, amount of fried bacon, three sunny side up eggs, while in a big cup he had a sugared coffee. Kiku smiled, without knowing why.  
Alfred gave him a big cup of milk, to be true, three times bigger than what the dancer imagined, and a jar full of cookies.  
Homemade ones.  
"...did you baked them?"  
"Me? Pft! - he laughed- Feli did."  
"Feli?"  
The policeman coughed, embarassed, "Emh, the husband of a collegue."  
"Oh. It's curious for a man to cook."  
Kiku bit a chocolate cookie and then stared.  
He turned to Alfred, "...it's the best thing I ever ate in my life."  
"Right?! - Alfred squeed - That boy is pratically a chef!"  
"I am quite impressed. - he bit again the cookie - He should work in a bakery shop."  
"...he was, but got fired."  
"How can it be?"  
Alfred swallowed, "Oh, well, sometimes people can be mean."  
Kiku didn't asked anything more, but the blond smiled, "Ah but he lives two flure he would appreciate it."  
"I will."  
He drank a little, observing Alfred eating like he just recovered from a terrible famine.  
"-you sure have a big appetite."  
"Appetite comes with eating!"  
"...so it's a vicious circle."  
Alfred frowned, "I don't undestand the diet mania, if it's this what you meant."  
Kiku shook his head briefly.  
"Neither do I."  
"I wouldn't say, you are so skinny."  
"I'd rather be big like you."  
Alfred laughed a little, "Well, but you seem stronger anyway."  
"I am quite... good at martial arts, I guess."  
"I am good with guns."  
"I saw. - Kiku ate another cookie - ... they are really delicious."  
"...are you angry?"  
"Why should I?"  
Alfred seemed awkward again, blushed a little and finished his breakfast, then drank slowly his coffee. Kiku blinked twice, before starting to realize.  
"Oh."  
"...is it... - Alfred swallowed - ...strange for you?"  
"Not completely. Just, mh, I am not very familiar with..."  
"Gay stuff?"  
"...first sight crushes. - he corrected, a little pissed-off for his own embarassment - I, I don't know you so much that I can say if I like you or not and I... I get somehow irritated by all this..."  
"...stuff?"  
"Your vocabulary lacks."  
Alfred smiled sadly.  
"Well, it's better than a 'you disgust me, fucking queer', I suppose."  
Kiku's first instinct was to remind him they met whil he was stripping in a bar full of gay men, then he tilted his head, "Somebody said such a rude thing to you?"  
"Well, it's not the best country for being homosexual."  
"Hearing you critizing America sounds strange, you seem its personification."  
"Do you really think so? - his eyes were shining - Anyway, I'm not critizing, it's just... I want more."  
"Marriage?"  
"Don't be seen as anti-american. - he smiled, proudly - Because America is the thing I love the most in the world!"  
Kiku gave a sigh, but smiled inside.  
He, sure, was... attractive.  
Alfred giggled and Kiku felt caught on the wrong foot.  
"Do you feel better than yesterday, don't you?"  
"Yes... - he confessed - But... I would like to change my clothes."  
"Do you like T-shirts and jeans?"  
"Unless it's a Superman one, it's okay."  
"...Captain America?"  
"No."  
"Spiderman?"  
"Don't you have something normal?"  
Alfred laughed harder, "Yes, of course, don't worry."  
The normality was a Mickey Mouse T-shirt.  
But Kiku had to accept it.  
When Alfred, one hour later, went out for work - he had to pay bills so he was doing some private detective practices with an unidentified friend - and left the japanese man alone, Kiku felt a little abandoned, but didn't want to point it out. He always was a lover of quiet, calm and tranquility always helped him to feel at his ease, but being in someone else's house was weird and bad thoughts didn't left him alone, not even for a moment.  
Hours passed doing nothing.  
He felt a little a rat in a new cage.  
He wasn't even able to tell what he was allowed to do and what absolutely not.  
Elvis was really too playful for Kiku's taste, and a little too less cute.  
It was pratically a dog trapped in a cat's body.  
He layed on the sofa, lazily, still thinking about the night before, when the door opened. Kiku took an empty beer bottle, ready to use it, but his target seemed really... harmless.  
He screamed, "I-I- Al told me you may wanted something to eat! Don't kill me!"  
Kiku blinked and lowered the bottle.  
"You are..."  
As he understood Kiku had no violent intentions, the boy calmed.  
He was beautiful, with big, sweet, hazel eyes and soft hair of the colour of dark chestnut tree honey. He seemed really inoffensive... and sweet.  
"Feliciano Vargas! - he smiled cheerfully and hugged him - Nice to meet you!"  
Kiku choked a gulp, pushing the strange boy away.  
"Did you ever heard of personal space?"  
"And what's your name?"  
Was he ignoring him or what?  
"Kiku Honda. - he gave a sigh - Who are you?"  
"A friend. - Feliciano smiled, his accent was strong, but soft, like singing - I sometimes cook for Alfred, because he is not exactly good at it. I live in this building and he asked me to come and prepare you a good dinner."  
Kiku blinked, "Ah... the cookie-boy."  
"Did you eat my cookies? Were they good?"  
The boy seemed both enthusiastic and panicking, Kiku was unable to say if he had a slightest idea of how good his cooking was.  
Then he thought that he wanted to be sure. Be sure he liked them.  
Be sure that...  
Also Yao cooked a lot for him.  
Kiku felt a sad shiver lingering on his lips, then he smiled. Quietly, sweetly.  
"They were really delicious."  
Feliciano squeezed him again, saying thank you like a broken record.  
"It is okay, but... - he swallowed - ...could you please let me breathe again?"  
The italian boy nodded, separating, then looked at him, blinked and, with a finger on his cheek, asked.  
"Are you Alfred's new lover?"  
"Not in this life."  
"Oh. - he seemed sad - Well, I really hoped this time. That boy is so jinxed."  
Kiku frowned, "Like?"  
Feliciano became closer and sussurred, like anybody could have ever heard them, "His last boyfriend turned out to be a criminal. He has some trust issues now."  
"...it was not exactly the impression he gave me.", Kiku confessed.  
"You mean about you? - his smiled widened, shining - Oh, but, Kiku! It's obvious you are good as bread."  
"What?"  
Feliciano panicked.  
"Argh! - he started to gesticulate even more than before, in an annoying and furious way - Ah, sorry, my English! It's years I'm here and still... ah, emh... who can you...?"  
"...try to calm down. - Kiku looked at him, patiently - It's a saying, it's improbable it to be identical. It's not your fault."  
Feliciano seemed to become quieter.  
"Heart of gold?"  
Kiku took a second for understanding that that was the translation Feliciano searched for his strange motto. Then hid his face, embarassed, slightly blushing.  
"I'm not..."  
"You sure are! - Feliciano smiled - You are so cute! Do you like pasta, Kiku? Tomato and basil sauce?"  
Kiku nodded, trembling a little, still overwhelmed but that shining energy.  
Feliciano, a strange boy.  
"Oh, would you like maybe to eat with me and Ludwig? - he looked sad - Al said it was okay just cooking for you and then leaving you alone, but it seems to bad to me that you have to stay here all alone, eating like an outcast, why don't you come in my apartment? Please, please, would you? Or do you feel more at your ease if I ask Ludwig to come here? Or do you prefer the two of us?"  
Kiku stuttered, "...w-who is Ludwig?"  
"My husband!"  
Oh. Clear.  
"Come on! You will have fun, I promise."  
Well, he kept his promise. Kiku had fun.  
A strange kind of fun, though.  
Ludwig was even more awkward than him when he was six years old, Feliciano was chatty as a turned on radio and they had a real zoo in the apartment: three dogs, big - not cutey and sweet ones, and two cats, one really a cuddler like a sugarcube, the other... well, he ignored them the whole time. Feliciano made tons of pasta, not even the whole Army would have been able to eat it, then he insisted on them eating his special tiramisù - he said "a foodorgasm" - and they had a coffee that was way too strong for everyone in the room except him.  
But it was fun.  
Feliciano smiling and singing old italian love song was fun.  
Ludwig muttering and trying to make him come down from the table was fun.  
Their kissing on the cheeks like two schoolboys was fun.  
Thinking about anything that was not his revenge, his not-life, his sadness was fun.  
Serenity was a world he had forgotten so long ago.  
Those two seemed so genuinely happy... like they never shed a tear before, but t was also obvious they did. How was it?  
What healed them?  
Feliciano was almost suffocating, laughing, "And then, that... I can't even...he gave me this ring with a tomato on it! It was just..."  
"Stop mocking me!"  
"It was just the equivalent wearing socks with sandals. - he laughed harder, then kissed Ludwig - Oh, you are just so German!"  
"...what's that supposed to mean?", Ludwig frowned.  
A little door bell sang and Feliciano went t the door. Kiku gave a glance and saw Ludwig with an hand close to his gun, ready to take it.  
As Alfred entered, Ludwig relaxed.  
"Hey, did you kindapp my Kiku?"  
Feliciano gave a malicious look, curling his lips, "Yes, your prince is here. - Kiku was about to mutter a protest but eventually decided to shut up - Do you want some tiramisù? These blasphemer didn't even eat half of it."  
Alfred was genunely shocked, "Nonsense!"  
"Exactly!"  
Ludwig gave a sigh, looking at Kiku, "When they talk about food, they can go on for six hours. - he paused - True Story."  
Kiku smiled shyly, "Oh well... it's not a problem."  
Looking at them, at those happy expressions on their faces and the sweetness of their laughs, Kiku felt is chest tighter. And his heart quivering.  
Was it even possible to be happy even with scars on the skin?  
Was it possible for a disfigured face to smile?  
His thoughts ran to Yao.  
Saying "I love you"to the man who is abusing you... is something like that human?

_"Yao..."_  
_"Call me 'brother'. - he asked, again, uselessly, with a smile - At least once."_  
_"Who is that man, Yao?"_  
_"You are too young for this kind of things, Kiku.", he scolded weakly._  
_The kid frowned._  
_"He hurts you."_  
_"It's not true, Kiku! Don't say this type of things!"_  
_"Your arm, your back, you have bruises and cuts. - he was young, but not stupid, Yao should have know it - You teached me that violence is bad. He must be bad."_  
_Yao bit his lips, lowering his head._  
_"You can't possibly understand."_  
_"I..."_  
_"Drink your tea, Kiku.", he almost hissed, turning the head._  
_His look was running away. Again._  
_Kiku hesited._  
_"Why don't we call the police?"_  
_"Cut it off."_  
_Kiku choked back tears and ran into the garden, leaving Yao alone, with his glance lost in the calm, sad, green tea. A leaf floating._  
_Yao smiled, bitterly, doleful._  
_"Good luck, aru?"_

Alfred was still awake, looking at the white walls painted blue by the night, a melanchonic coming from the upper floor, where the old lady was playing her piano. Again, like every evening, from midnight to 4 AM. Alfred learned with time to love it, but the first months it was somehow hard to fall asleep with that music.  
He still rememered the day he decided to tell her to change the time of her performances. He was so angry he felt his veins hard and rigid.  
But, when she opened the door, all his anger fade away.  
She tilted his old head, gracefully.  
"Oh, good morning!"  
She seemed happy, shining like the sun, just because someone knocked at her door.  
She didn't play the piano in the night because of some caprice.  
She wasn't able to sleep.  
The other side of the bedwas too empty.  
"You remind me so much of my dear Paul. - she confessed in a whisper, once, preparing the tea - He has two big blue eyes, so young and proud... even when he was eighty years old, those eyes were just like the one of a child..."  
Paul died on the 5th February the yeard before.  
She wasn't able to sleep at night since that day.  
"Do you want a slice of lemon in your tea? - she asked, attentive - Oh, do you like lemon loaf? I made some. My son loves it, so I keep on training... maybe one day he will come to visit me. He lives in Atlanta, he is a medician. A heart surgeon."  
Mark never came that year.  
Nor the next one.  
A postcard for Thanksgiving and a phone call for Christmas. He forgot to call on the 5th of February and so on the 15th of March. Alfred bought some roses, white ones, and added a "Happy Birthday" card. He signed it 'Mark, for mommy'.  
But Lily Bernstein knew.  
She smiled and never said anything about it.  
Alfred gave a sigh, thinking about all those things, still awake, in the middle of the night.  
He was on the bed, he tried to convince Kiku to sleep there, but the japanese boy insisted that the sofa was perfect.  
Alfred got up, barefoot, stepped next to the sofa and sat down, looking at Kiku.  
He truly was perfect.  
Alfred felt utterly defeated.  
Maybe, it was Destiny who made them meet, maybe together they would have been able to find Ivan. Or, at least, he would have been able to protect Kiku.  
It seemed enough to him.  
It sounded good.  
He caressed Kiku's lips with his fingers.  
Lingering.  
How stupid it was, to fall in love with someone you barely know?  
To want them. To desire them. To long for them.  
His dark eyes seemed hollow and eager. Like holes in his white skin.  
But now, that those eyelids were closed, like a pix protecting dreams, Kiku seemed like the most innocent creature on earth.  
And thos jeans so big and those wrists so small.  
He seemed even younger.  
Alfred gave a deep, heavy sigh. With a slight pressure, he almost opened those lips.  
"...hey."  
Alfred fell back, muttering, Kiku blinked and then leant on his elbows. His look was severe and harsh.  
"Are you awake?"  
"Sleeping people rarely talk. - he grumbled - Don't touch me again while I sleep."  
"Sorry, I was just..."  
"...touching my lips. It's creepy."  
Alfred fumed, "I didn't do anything bad. I am not that type of person."  
"Did you took me for a slut? - Kiku almost shouted - Because I am not."  
"I didn't think so, not even an istant!"  
Kiku frowned, "Then I might deduce is it one of your hobbies to touch people as they are unaware?"  
The blond american felt embarassed and uncomfortable. All the worlds he would have liked to tell lost any sense, feeling like tasteless colourless blabbering.  
"No. - Alfred bit his lips, then stood up - Good night."  
Kiku held his arm, with a rush.  
And fell on the ground.  
Alfred started with surprise, "Are you okay?"  
The japanese boy managed to seat, then massaged his back, moaning slowly.  
"You sure bring bad luck."  
Alfred smiled, still a little sorry, "I can't help it."  
Kiku raised an eyebrow, "I wasn't ser-"  
Alfred's lips were overly salty, his hands against his shoulders too strong. His blue eyes too magnetizing. Kiku tried to protest, but Alfred's eager mouth, seemed to devour his. He had to labour to breathe.  
Kiku just looked at that blond hair, strangely azure for the night, while the moonlight reflected on his wristclock.  
2 AM.  
It's a good hour to go crazy.  
He closed his eyes.  
Alfred was so warm, almost burning, while his fingertips ran on Kiku's snowy skin. It was melting.  
And scary.  
Terrifyingly melting.  
It was good.  
It was bad. It definitely tasted good.  
Bitter aftertaste.  
Alfred let one hand invading Kiku's jeans, and the japanese shivered, trmbling, under his touch like a leaf. Kiku moaned, with a mellow twitch.  
His sight blurred, when the american deppened even more the kiss, pushing him against the sofa, running down his spine, calling his name directly in his mouth. Kiku sank his short nails in Alfred's flesh.  
Cold fire, burning ice.  
His heart racing.  
Kiku was... sure, yes, sure he wasn't the type of person whose heart races. Nor skips bits.  
Then, there, his breathe was shattered and his brain shut up.  
Alfred stopped.  
Kiku slowly opened his eyes again, looking in those deep glaring skies. His lungs hesitated to inhale.  
"Can I stand by your side?"  
"Why?"  
"You can't kill Ivan alone. - Alfred seemed suddenly so sad it was alienating - Let me help you."  
Kiku lowered his face.  
"You will get in troubles."  
Alfred winked.  
"I am bulletproof."


	3. Chapter 3

3# Bullet With Butterfly Wings

_He never felt different._  
_Before._  
_Yes, looking in the mirror, he always saw something different technically, but he never thought that it may be something of big importance._  
_When he brushed, surely he knew his hair was straight and the colour of ashes. And, yes, he was aware he was quite pale and his eyes were dull and darker. _  
_And he was skinny and short. Like the mouse-shaped cracker between the giraffe ones._  
_But he never thought that actually mattered._  
_He never felt like something was wrong about him._  
_So, that day, it was necessary a long moment, for him, to understand._  
_Rory kicked him._  
_The grass didn't felt soft, and his with shirt was all stained: green and brown. And moist, because that morning, early, rained a lot._  
_"Chink!"_  
_Kiku didn't understand, initially._  
_To him, a chink was a crack. A fissure._  
_Chink meant something was broken._  
_He immediately looked at his clothes and then his bag, but, while he was still wondering why he deserved a kick, he understood. He._  
_He was a chink._  
_He was the broken thing._  
_He was the one who was not in one piece._  
_Rory laughed harder and left, while his frends found all of it terribly funny and yelled at him too. Chink, chink, chink._  
_He never felt different before._  
_He never stopped feeling so anymore._  
_Slowly, with a little red stream on the knees, tottering slightly, with the eyes strangely duller than usual, he arrived to the restaurant. He knocked._  
_Yao opened the door with a wide smile, "Kiku, I prepared your... oh dear, what happened?"_  
_His shirt was completely ruined, so Kiku bit his lips, hoping not to be scolded again._  
_"I fell..."_  
_"But look at your legs!", Yao took him in his arms, cradling him softly._  
_Kiku was really a little too old for that, so the chinese boy found it difficult, his arms were even getting weaker since he stopped training. He was working at the restaurant pratically day and night._  
_"...can you put me down?"_  
_Once he was again at his normal height, the little boy entered in the big kitchen and looked, shy, at the sweet cart. There was a little fissure on the glass._  
_He felt his stomach tighter._  
_Tangled._  
_Full of nails._  
_"... I'll go to sleep a moment.", he almost whispered._  
_His knees, they didn't even hurt anymore. _  
_He was sure it wasn't that the crack he had. It was something else._  
_And he felt like it was really deeper, because he didn't even noticed it, so it couldn't be in plain view. At the same time, he wondered since how much he had it._  
_...since birth?_  
_What was so wrong about him?_  
_What was so wrong? In Japan, nobody ever called him 'broken' and everybody said he was a polite and sweet child. And they always told his parents were so lucky of how both Yao and he were._  
_His mother... she used to sing him a lullaby._  
_She surely didn't see his crack._  
_Yao came closer to him and, looking sadly, asked, "Kiku, what are you thinking at?"_  
_Yao..._  
_He was the only one who actually saw behind his blank expression._  
_He wasn't even his brother, genetically, they just grew up together, so Kiku always refused to call him that way, not because he didn't love him, just... it was technically wrong. It was simply not true._  
_But he was important to him._  
_Because Yao always knew._  
_Because Yao always saw._  
_Because Yao-_  
_"...where is my chink?"_  
_Yao stopped smiling._  
_Slowly, his face turned greyish. And with a lifeless voice, that Kiku didn't even knew he was able to make, he asked, "Who said that?"_  
_Kiku panicked, silently._  
_His eyes running in the room, his beat faster, quicker, histerical._  
_"I... I- Ro..."_  
_"You didn't fall, right? Somebody pushed you!"_  
_His eyes seemed burning, Kiku felt his legs weaker._  
_"Ro... - was it okay to say it? was it wrong? - Rory said..."_  
_"Rory called you 'chink'?"_  
_He was so angry, that Kiku felt his stomach breaking, like a glass falling to the ground. Not one of his big, colourful plastic glass, one of the refined one used for the clients of the restaurant. He felt like when his favourite cup, the one with the little rabbit, fell at the floor and the handle broke._  
_And Yao tried to fix it, but it was impossible. So he threw it away, because it was dangerous to use a broken mug. But Kiku cried, "no, no, Rabbit is alive, he will be scared in the bin liner, it's all black, he is afraid of darkness!". Yao said he would have bought another mug._  
_He never found another one like that._  
_Kiku felt something overwhelming and suffocating holding his throat._  
_He nodded, then denied, scared, he ran to his room, upstairs._  
_Yao lowered his head, but a client called him. He went in the living room, ready to use his accent and his fake mistakes, like everytime._  
_"How can I help you, aru?"_  
_Oh._  
_Ivan._  
_"...oh, it's you."_  
_At least, with him, 'aru' and such weren't necessary._  
_"Can I have a portion of Shrimp dumplings, one of Kung Pao Chicken and a Chop suey? Oh, and don't forget Fried ice cream."_  
_Yao gave a deep sigh, "How many times do you plan to come here?"_  
_The Russian seemed disappointed and made a childish sad face, "Do I disturb you? I don't make any trouble, I just seat here watching you."_  
_"That's exactly what disturbs me..."_  
_Ivan tilted his head, blinking._  
_"...what happened?"_  
_"Uh? Nothing, why?"_  
_"Lie! -he smiled, coldly - C'mon, you shouldn't tell lies. It's a bad habit."_  
_Yao gave a look, diffident but, to the core, flattered._  
_"The dumplings: fried or steamed?"_  
_Ivan smiled again, "You know perfectly."_  
_The chinese brunette gave up, "Give me some minutes. Sparkling water with ice, yes?"_  
_"As everyday."_  
_"You will get fat eating fried stuff every evening."_  
_"I am already fat.", he protested._  
_Yao raised an eyebrow, "Well, you will get even fatter."_  
_"Do you like only thin people?"_  
_"No, I don't - Yao stuttered, feeling awkward, then shouted - Oh, I won't have a date with you, give up already!"_  
_Ivan waved a finger, "I don't like to give up!"_  
_"...stubborn."_  
_It was meant to be an insult, but to Ivan it was truly a compliment._  
_When the restaurant was already empty, in the middle of the afternoon, Yao brought the dessert to Ivan, who beckoned him._  
_"So, what happened?"_  
_"I can't see why I should tell you.", Yao confessed._  
_Ivan's eyes were kind. But strange._  
_Like the ice was inside the lake, instead that on the surface._  
_"Please. - he asked - Sometimes talking with someone can help."_  
_Yao's glance seemed warmer and sadder, he sat up, exhausted, like he was giving up wearing his smile._  
_"...same old story."_  
_"Someone said something bad to you?"_  
_"To Kiku."_  
_"Your little brother?"_  
_He nodded, "Yes...'chink', they said. 'Chink'."_  
_Ivan broke the tempura shell of his dessert. Yao used Vanilla ice cream: his favourite flavour._  
_He smiled, sweetly. And Yao confessed himself that smile was so tender it was close to be as heart-warming as Kiku's one._  
_"...it's not nice to insult someone."_  
_"Indeed."_  
_Ivan continued, taking small bites of the dessert to the mouth and eating it, thoughtful._  
_"I don't like when people call me 'vodka-guy' or say 'da, da'..."_  
_"...Ivan, you actually go everywhere with a vodka bottle."_  
_The russian laughed a little, his shoulders shaking. His lips were dirty for the icecream._  
_A sweet white paint._  
_Yao thought... oh no, it was stupid._  
_But he was charming indeed._  
_"Do you know who was the culpable?"_  
_"Culpable sounds kind of a big word! It's a kids' thing."_  
_"Well, Kiku cried, didn't he? And you are sad too."_  
_Yao shook his head, patiently, "It was Rory Smith, he lives near, I... I thought they were friends, they actually were... until now, I think."_  
_"Rory Smith, mh?"_  
_Ivan munched that name, with the last bite of fried ice cream._  
_Four days after, someone set fire to Rory's house._  
_Yao understood that ice can burn too._

"Ouch, my head!"  
Kiku massaged his forehead, his eyes half-closed, with a tired look. He slept horribly.  
A good smell near him, seemed, anyway, to quickly change his mood.  
Alfred smiled, "Kind of... thought to bring you breakfast in bed."  
Kiku blinked, umcomfortably flattered, sweetly surprised. His eyes were always dull and dark, but, somehow, Alfred read into them his idea was appreciated.  
The japanese boy touched his short hair nervously.  
Alfred came near and, giving him the tray, kissed him on a cheek. Kiku tuttered, starting with astonishment, but the American didn't let him even pronuncing a whole word.  
"I prepared tea! - he commented, enthusiastically - I bought it yesterday returning from work, and I bought also a lot of cookies, because I wanted to know which you liked more and this morning, after my jogging routine, I bought you some pastries."  
Kiku frowned, "It is way too much, you shouldn't have..."  
"I want you to feel at home."  
Elvis jumped on the bed, meowing loudly. Kiku didn't even noticed he started to caress him, Alfred did, though.  
"Well, at home I am always alone, so... it's not exacly how I want to feel."  
"Do you mean you feel better with me?"  
Kiku was not sure if that was a question or a sentence, Al's voice sounded suddenly so happy and childlishly bright.  
He felt sick.  
Like close to the edge of something nauseating.  
He took the hot tea mug in his hands. He drank slowly, looking at Alfred without talking.

_"Who are you, exactly?"_  
_Ivan turned to him, smiling, "What do you mean, Kiku? It's me: Ivan."_  
_"You know what I mean."_  
_His smiled seemed suddenly sharp._  
_Fauces, jaws, saber-teeth._  
_"That's not something a kid should ask about."_  
_Kiku trembled, but imposed himself not to back away._  
_He looked at Ivan directly in those bright, icy, violet eyes. Those, they couldn't frighten him._  
_Because he perflectly knew his eyes seemed scary too._  
_"Are you daring to look me straight, mh?"_  
_He seemed amused and his fingers came closer to his eyes, so that Kiku for a moment thought he would have tried to pull them out. But he didn't blinked._  
_"Who are you?"_  
_Ivan stopped, he didn't smile anymore. _  
_His tumid lips seemed wicked._  
_"A friend- a dear, dear friend."_

Alfred exclaimed, "I am really happy!"  
Kiku's eyebrow rose again slightly, he was actually perplexed, "...do you like me so much?"  
The american seemed to lose his words and got reddish.  
"I said you already..."  
"I mean. - Kiku frowned - Nobody ever brought me breakfast in bed. - he cracked a sad smile, tilting his head - Nor bought me enough food to make me become overweight with just one meal. Nor... was actually sweet."  
"I like heroes.", Alfred replied, shortly.  
"Well, this I know."  
"No no, I mean, I really do like them. - Alfred stole a little pastry from the tray - All those stories taught me so many things and the first one is that when someone is important you have to protect them and make them happy. As much as you can. And more."  
His eyes were actually cerulean.  
Like a sunny sky.  
A cloudless, flawless, fairytale sunny sky.  
Looking at them, Kiku felt his own eyes brighter.  
He moved closer, gently, slowly. Like he wanted that moment to last for centuries.  
But as he was enough near for his intentions being impossible to misunderstand, Alfred caught his lips, in an eager, hungry, grip.  
Kiku moaned.  
Some hot drops of tea stained the blankets, Elvis observed, incredibly quiet.  
When they separated, panting, Kiku said, heavily, "If you want to make me happy, stop taking me unawares."  
"Do you like cute things, right?"  
"How do you even..."  
"If you ever saw your face as you are caught by surprise, you wouldn't ask me to even try to avoid it."  
"...you are cheesy."  
"One of my parents is french. And I grew up with Julia Roberts comedies. Give up."  
Alfred was close to kiss him again but the sound of a mobile phone saved Kiku, who managed to eat something, sharing his food with Elvis, while the american blond man had a long conversation with someone that Kiku just sensed being "a colleague".  
"Yes, Matthew, I know... no, I didn't... no, I... okay, maybe just some information... well, I know that... Jesus Christ and crispy crispy Benjamin Franklin, Matthew, I know!"  
Kiku would have like to say something, but decided to shut up.  
Useless to say, he shouldn't have even overheard those words.  
In the end, Alfred was outside the room. But he was screaming.  
Well, actually, Alfred was always screaming, so, did that even count as screaming?  
Elvis purred.  
Really, he felt better there that at home.  
Which was wrong. And even a little scary.  
Destabilizing.  
Destabilizing and beautiful.  
He knew Alfred since such a short time and already all that sweetness and... cuddle stuff and... intimacy, and not the sexual kind - not that he was actually used to it, though - and. Alfred felt like a promise, a good one, one of happy future and sweetness and fairytales and never leave.  
"The American Dream", he thought.  
Sort of.  
But did he have the time to dream, when he was playing such a dangerous russian roulette against destiny?  
Or was that just a coward attempt of being happy without revenge?  
He felt guilty.  
He was the only one able to revenge Yao, he was neither supposed nor allowed to give up.  
A dream is not something that should be able to make you forget reality.  
Elvis mewed.  
It was really a fat cat- and big and ungraceful. But it was sweet, while licking Kiku's hand, with his rough little tongue, thanking him for the food. Dearly.  
The japanese boy smiled.  
Another shouting session, then Alfred was back.  
"Sorry, kind of had to talk."  
"Don't worry. - Kiku lied - Emh, are you feeling well? It seemed tiring."  
"A spot of bother. - he was in a sulk - My brother, anyway."  
"You don't get along well?"  
"Not exactly, I mean, I love him, but he's always so... quiet and a real laws and tranquility lover. - Alfred grouched - It's like he can't really understands me."  
Kiku shook his head, giving a sigh, "You talk like Yao, sometimes."  
Alfred raised his eyes, "Your brother?"  
"Mh-mh."  
The blond looked at the blankets, biting his lips: how far he was allowed to go? Kiku was clearly rather fond of his privacy. And a little taciturn.  
Alfred didn't want to invade his space or such, just- he was damn curious on a daily basis. And that time it was even about Kiku, which made even more unable to stay silent and calm.  
"I- emh, you don't have to speak if you don't want to."  
Kiku frowned, "I wasn't speaking."  
Damn, he noticed.  
Alfred swallowed, "Well... it's just, maybe, talking about it can..."  
The japanese boy gave a deep sigh.  
"You are just a meddler."  
As he saw disappointment, like a red sad stripe in those blue eyes, Kiku started again, "He was my mother's son of the first marriage, then she come in Japan, where she met my dad. - he explained briefly, with a strangely heavy pitch - Then we came to America and here they opened a little restaurant, but they died, so... - Alfred's eye became wet, Kiku's not - Yao raised me."  
"...how did he met Ivan?"  
"They were... I don't know what. I think Ivan sort of blackmailed him. Yao trusted him and was backstabbed."  
Alfred was not convinced, his intuition warned him that Kiku was clearly telling a lie.  
But he didn't ask more.  
"I found out he was controlling some clubs in this zone, so I came here. And I... well, went for an audition, I guess you can say."  
"I remember quite clearly, yes."  
"I know."  
Was that a smirk on Kiku's face?  
"I am sorry.", Afred confessed.  
"It was a sad story, I guess."  
"Not that. I am sorry because I can't understand. - he looked at his wrists - Nobody in my family ever died, I never lost anyone seriously important. So it's like I wanted to know more about you through your story and now what I know it's just I don't know anything at all."  
Kiku opened his mouth, but he felt mute.  
Alfred clenched his fists.  
"I would have liked to help you, to save you. But I don't even know were to put my hands: holding you it makes you uneasy. But I don't want to leave you there, feeling all alone and cold, when I'm here burning just to keep me in my arms."  
What was he supposed to say then?  
Sure, he knew, but it was not what he was actually thinking.  
"Why you do never speaks your mind?", Alfred's tone was worried.  
Kiku avoided his glance, his eyes nailed to his own, immobile, hands.  
"Because sometimes it's not necessary or it's not the case."  
"I just said something important, I would like an answer!"  
There, again, the impatient, childish, immature reality behind the prince façade. Let me guess, Al, you want it all and you want it now. Isn't it?  
"You talk about saving me, but it's just you chewing over mental bits and bobs."  
Alfred put on a puzzled expression.  
Kiku's breath seemed a dagger. A beautiful, terrible, dagger.  
"I'm not seeking for a savior, Al."  
The American hesitated, breathed in, let his eyes lingering on Kiku's fingers, as he seemed even more a statue. Full of a dead grace.  
"Then, what are you searching for?"  
He thought. He thought he could have been everything that Kiku ever wanted. Anything he dreamed of.  
Kiku's eyelids closed.  
"Nothing."  
Oh.  
Well.  
"...that's a shame.", Alfred chuckled bitterly, with a deep crack in his voice.  
The strained grimace of the America's face, made Kiku feeling guilty, even if he knew he didn't say anything wrong or untrue. Just... damn. He also tried to be polite, to turn him down gently, somehow. But that- that boy was so stubborn and, and his voice seemed clung to his mind like a smell to clothes.  
Kiku murmured his name, in hushed tones, trying to deny to himself he was actually distressed.  
"We... right now. - his lips hesitated - We should think about Ivan, right now."  
Alfred's expression changed quickly, as the determination returned to him. He nodded.  
"We need a plan."  
"It's impossible to kill him as long as he is close to his bodyguards: Natalia and Irina. We need to isolate him."  
Alfred agreed, "I remember Toris told me he always gives a birthday party. On 30th December, every year, unfortunately we never managed to know where."  
Kiku's voice sounded vitreous, "Who is Tori?"  
The ex-cop shook his head, his lips flipped a little.  
The japanese man replied for both, "Toris Laurinaitis."  
"...he was an informer, only after I discovered he was double-crossing."  
Kiku found his voice more sour and harsh than what he thought it was phisically possible, it almost burned in his throat.  
"So it's kind of habit for you, to fall for people during investigations."  
For the very first time, Alfred seemed seriously angry. Not only aggressive, not simply disappointed or quick-tempered. He seemed actually wrathful.  
"It's a topic I don't want to discuss."  
Kiku gave a mocking, quick, sharp-edged giggle.  
"Gag order?"  
As he said it, he found Alfred over him, holding his wrists with one hand and looking straight in his dark eyes. Kiku felt weak, like he was going to break him.  
"I wouldn't have thought you were so touchy. - he jerked, tugged, but Alfred was damnly stronger than him - Stop it."  
"Don't make me play the bad cop.", he hissed.  
"Should I be scared?"  
Kiku's eyes were deep as wells. Dark paradises.  
"You don't want me to get angry, trust me."  
And, with a quick look, Kiku understood the coming danger. Alfred was exactly like America: so kind and sunny, but you never should piss them off.  
Alfred was proud, only of a different kind from the one Kiku knew, and he was greedy. Extremely greedy.  
And forceful. And domineering.  
And beautiful.  
But Kiku also knew something more: he was not less stubborn. He never bent over.  
"What's the problem? You have a fetish for damsels in distress, sort of common."  
The last thing Kiku expected was actually a punch. His face throbbed and in his mouth he felt the acidic, full, flavour of his own blood.  
He turned, glaring again at Alfred, but he found his eyes being more scared than what he thought possible.  
Alfred was terrorized. From what he just did.  
"I... I..."  
Kiku swallowed a little of dark red liquid. His heart beating mightily.  
He felt sorry.  
"Doesn't matter. - he said, quickly - My fault, I just played with fire."  
As he finished, Alfred kissed him: slowly, soflty, candidly tasting. Like an adolescent: hesitating, trembling, adoring.  
Kiku felt an electric shock running through his spine. And returned the kiss, harder, intensifying it.  
Worship, greed, fear.  
Everything was a mixed, mangled emotion. It was beating in his pulp, it was giving him life again.  
Rain in the desert. Sun in the storm.  
The pelting rain started again, but Kiku didn't hear it, because his heartbeat was so loud he actually felt close to go deaf.  
It was completely different from before: he wanted it, he wanted him. Alfred, the ex-cop, the stupid idealist, the bossy kid. He wanted it.  
He started to care about his life and his surviving the Yao's revenge.  
As Alfred separated to breathe in again, Kiku felt his head racing.  
"I will return to Ivan... - he sussured, firmly - I will gain his trust again."  
"It's too dangerous."  
"No, it's the only way."  
Alfred felt his tension crush his stomach to powder. Frustration running in his arms.  
Kiku was strong, he even saved his life, but, as he looked at him, all he saw was something delicate. And worth-protecting.  
Even he just... his stupid rage control problem.  
But Ivan wasn't simply like him, he was a killing machine. And Kiku.  
Kiku was like a little mouse against a boa constrictor.  
"Alfred..."  
"Yes?"  
"You have to promise me one thing."

_Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun..._  
_And baby when it's love if its not rough it isn't fun._


	4. Chapter 4

_4# Shoot the loop, shoot the moon_

He didn't expected it would have been easy.  
But, still, his forecast turned out to be too optimistic.  
Kiku screamed, gasping, slithering, crawling. Third kick was violent enought to make him scream, choking tears.  
"Natalia, don't overdo. - Ivan tilted his head, a kind bright smile on his lips - If you break his bones, he won't be able to dance. Besides, clients rarely love bruises."  
The blonde, beautiful girl nodded with a firm movement of the head.  
Kiku coughed, feeling his muscles close to tear.  
Normally he wouldn't have felt so vulnerable, but being tied up, with hands behind the back, and with a professional killer using him as punchball wasn't exactly his definition of 'comfortable'. Besides, Natalia was everything but the delicate doll she seemed: strong as a man and cruel as a shark.  
And devoted, devoted to Ivan.  
She gave him another kick in the stomach and Kiku wondered if he would have spit blood sooner or later.  
Natalia directed a disappointed and boring glare to the japanese boy.  
"Actually... irksome."  
Ivan's voice seemed a lullaby, "You can play a little with his back, if you are tired of hitting him."  
She didn't even replied, lacerated Kiku's shirt and , with a boot on his head, immobilazed him on his stomach.  
He did hardly realized something: she was incredibly silent and controlled, plus, his eyes were pratically at a few millimeters from the floor and he couldn't move. He overheard just a little click.  
And a brief exhalation.  
Then, white.  
"He writhes in a funny way, don't you think, Natalia?"  
She nodded, Kiku panted.  
"Just don't burn him too much, I don't want him to be unpleasant."  
Natalia lit a second cigarette, extinguishing it just a moment after on Kiku's back. Then she proceeded to warm a little one of her knives with the lighter.  
Ivan clapped his hands, "He seems a vivisected worm!"  
Kiku clenched his teeth, until he felt his whole mouth aching and a sore iron flavour, trying not scream, imposing himself silence, while Natalia branded him, like cattle.  
His eyes were wet and his sight blurred.  
His breath was heavy and shattered, interrupted by anxiety and his scared heartbeats.  
Ivan giggled, "So... Katou Masaki, right?"  
Kiku tried to look at the man, to confirm the fake name he gave at the time of his auditon.  
"Repeat me: how is it that you disappeared right after a gunfight in which was involved a man I had some... mh, squabbles with?"  
"I was scared.", he lied, hoping Ivan would have swallowed it.  
"Do you know anything about that man?"  
"Just that he was watching the show..."  
Ivan laughed, slightly amused, "His tastes didn't change, I see. - then looked down to Kiku - Listen to me, Katou, and very well, because I don't like to repeat myself."  
His violet eyes were piercing and icy.  
Exactly like Kiku remembered.  
His Yao.  
Under those hands...  
"I am tendencially friendly and extremely easygoing. - Ivan continued - But I don't tolerate flies, so don't put strokes in my wheels and, to be extremely kind I'd warn you, don't try your luck or the next play will be the one of the mouse and the bucket."  
Kiku shivered. He almost felt the pain in his abdomen at the idea of a little mouse scratching and biting and eating it.  
He felt sick.  
He knew he was not more walking the line: he was right on the other side, he lost his only chance to be safe. That was his duty and he knew it wasthe right thing to do, the only one, but... suddenly, the idea of being squashed by the Russian organization was hideous.  
Not simply death, but torture.  
Al.  
No, he shook his head, hanging on and holding the memories of the quiet days, with Yao, and their parents, looking at sakura cherry tree and relaxing under the kotatsu.  
Her mom's smile.  
It was like pure honey.  
Ivan's one was like poison.  
Kiku whispered, "I swear I never meant to betray you."  
Ivan's look seemed like the edge of a razor, while he looked at Natalia and spoke, quietly, "Discover how Jones knew the password of the Matryoshka."  
"Should I change it?"  
"It's not necessary. - he seemed almost cheerful - He will return and we will wait for him."  
Kiku felt a hole in the heart.  
He was truly happy they already had a plan and that Alfred wouldn't have returned at the Matryoshka . But, even if he was relieved, he still felt a big pain slashing his chest.  
He wasn't the only one risking his life, but also Alfred.  
Kiku felt stupid: feeling such a strong bond with a man we knew from less than a week, when he was groaning on the floor, with burns on his back. He shouldn't have worry and he shouldn't have let the angst win.  
Wrath was the key, they said.  
Being angry means having strenght, energy, means never surrender. Only the one who has no anger let the others flatten him. Rage is fuel.  
But now, discovering himself horribly weak, terribly pathetic, he started to feel afraid for Al's life. Even if he knew he was strong, simply not having the certainty that he wouldn't have died was too much.  
There, lying on his stomach, with the taste of blood on his tongue, where the morning he felt Alfred's kiss, Kiku felt the heart breaking.  
And when heart breaks, people tend to imagine it to stay in two pieces, outlined and precise. Or shattered.  
It was not like that: he was clearly able to feel a deep crevice, a web-shaped crack running on the heart, like on broken window. And, from the bottom, slowly, he felt splinters of his myocardium falling.  
His soul was powder.  
And that sharp powder, descending, like daggers or glass, cut everything in him.  
Diaphragm.  
Stomach.  
Liver.  
Pancreas.  
Intestine.  
Down down, slowly slowly. He felt that sufference tearing all of him apart.  
Ivan looked at him, curious, "Natalia, take care of him a little more, just to be sure he understood what I think about cowards."  
"Are you going?", she seemed sad.  
"I have to. - he giggled - I promised to be home as soon as possible."  
Then she clenched his fists.  
Kiku screamed again, under her knife, going deeper into his flesh.  
Ivan closed tha door and exited from his office, while in the main room of the club, he gently wished goodbye to Meimei and Leon. "Baby blue suits you a lot!"., he added with a kind smile. She blushed a little.  
It was a nice day- In the busy and noisy street, the cars were running, the taxi drivers were cursing, the sun was white and distant. The brisk winter air reminded him of Moscow. Ivan was humming a song, walking down the street.  
He bought a rose. A red one.  
He smiled, looking at it, then gave an Hamilton to a tramp. He seemed happy.  
His was was not far, he breathed in the sweet scent of his white scarf: apple and melon. The new detergent he bought.  
It was sweet.  
He crossed the street, walked some blocks and then reached his building, then the apartment, opening the door.

_We'll see how fast you'll be running,_  
_we'll see how brave you are._

_The tears kept running from Yao's dark eyes. He curled up, gripping the dark sheets._  
_Ivan slowly turned to him, "Another nightmare?"_  
_"They won't leave me alone."_  
_Ivan's lips bent down, saldy. He wasn't able to find the right words to make him smile again. It was always like that, not a single night of rest. Never a night where Yao was able to sleep himself 'til dawn._  
_The chinese man trembled slightly._  
_Ivan grabbed him._  
_"...snuggle up to me."_  
_Not the cold inanimated sheets, not the surrounding world, not anyone else; Ivan wanted to be his comfort, his safe place._  
_Yao moved rigidly, primly, holding onto his pride, and then nuzzled to the russian chest. Ivan hugged him._  
_"You are not alone."_  
_"...do you ever listen to me when I say you the same?", whispered the chinese, with a slightly bitter tone._  
_"No."_  
_Ivan looked out of the window. He would have liked to wish upon a star, but no one was falling that night, so, disappointed, he returned to look at Yao's sad expression._  
_Since when his parents' murder excaped prison, he was always nervous, pratically crawling on the razor's edge of a breakdown. Kiku actually stopped talking to him, aside from the essentials, because he knew his brother was too tired._  
_Still, Yao felt terribly guilty for it all._  
_Ivan kissed him._  
_"I would just like to run away, Ivan."_  
_"Oh. - the russian frowned, confused - I was sure it was what you were tired of doing."_

_We'll see how fast you'll be running,_  
_we'll see how brave you are._

"I'm home!", he greeted.  
His hands were a soft, pale shade of gold. His raven hair gently tied back. One the lips a wide smile.  
"Welcome back."  
Ivan smiled back, "You seem happy."  
He bent over, kissing him, softly.  
"How was today at work?"  
"As usually, a bit tiring. - Ivan untied the necktie - But being with you will make my mood better, eventually."  
His purple eyes lingered on the ankles of the man. They had two deep wounds, making extremely difficult for him to walk, pratically impossible.  
He wouldn't be able to escape, like a bird with cut wings.  
Those wounds were his stigmata.  
The wounds Ivan did him.  
Ivan kissed him again.  
"Carry me on the bed.", he said.

_The stink of rotten litter, the cold, grey, shadow of the cement, the sharp silence of every thing. Alfred looked at him while he shivered._  
_His chest was so fast, his breath so scared._  
_He seemed a trapped rat._  
_Alfred lowered his gun, looking in his eyes._  
_When they met, everything seemed perfect- they seemed perfect. Common opinions, sweet laughs, lazy Sunday mornings, it seemed that type of relationship when nobody actually needed artificial tricks nor pride._  
_Toris seemed to be in love._  
_Alfred trusted him._  
_How stupid. How... _  
_He was just another toy, another piece of Ivan's chessboard._  
_"...go away.", he whispered._  
_Toris shivered._  
_"But-"_  
_"Go away! - Alfred screamed - Go away, before I change my mind."_  
_He knew there was no time for denying, no time for pretending: he wouldn't have been able to kill Toris, not even to arrest him._  
_As he saw the brunette running away and the siren of the police cars coming closer, everything seemed darker. Darker and senseless._  
_Foolish games._  
_Unwise choices._  
_Insane idea of turning back time and changing his actions and not trusting, and not being betrayed, and not being naked and fragile and deceived._  
_He swore he would have never trusted anyone at the first sight; but it's not how t works. It's not something he was able to change._  
_Like a kid, he would have repeated the same mistake, again and again._  
_Alfred wasn't able to change at will. _  
_Nobody is._  
_It was just a matter of time: what makes us bleed today, will be a scar in a month and a memory in a year. Even the deepest cut has a cycle, a beginning and an end._  
_Sometimes, we would like them to be eternal, like a warning or a monition, but they can't. Like people, even pains die and disappear._  
_And so even Alfred's pain, even the memory of Toris, everything one day wouldn't have hurt anymore. It was a tragedy, maybe, from a certain point of view, because it means that also good things, sweet ones, even Love, aren't eternal._  
_Everything will pass, true, also what we would just want to hold._  
_Imaginary rivers will sweep away every precious and dear moment of our lives._  
_Alfred bit his lips until they started to bleed._  
_He called Toris name, between his teeth, crushing it._  
_He just wanted to forget._  
_Matthew arrived, asking if he was hurt._  
_"No, no."_  
_He didn't manage to smile._  
_He didn't manage to pretend it was okay._  
_In his voice, a deep crack let the the sound of the tears fell out. Even if he was not a visible crying, it was clear and impossible to deny._  
_Matthew hugged the brother._  
_There was no time for remembering that men don't cry._

When Kiku was in the street, staggering, he remembered that day: the first time someone called him 'chink'. Obviously this time the pain was deeped than a simple cut on the knees, but the only true difference in his mind, was that this time he didn't have Yao to go home to. Even if years passed, his brother's death never stopped making him feel completely, utterly alone.  
Initially, he thought of going back to his apartment, suspecting that some Ivan's spies followed him, but, once he was sure he was alone, he headed to Alfred's house. He was not enough strong to feel alone that night.  
He wondered how a normal life was.  
Did other people eve return to house with the pain of invisible bruises on their stomach? How was a Thanksgiving dinner? Do young boys lose their virginity at what age? Did people feel completely alone?  
How was a normal life?  
Do people always feel like they are not part of the universe around them, like a lost satellite?  
When he was on the stairs, at every step, he started to remember things he never did and places he dreamt to visit , flipping the pages of his books, he remembered all the songs he didn't understand the meaning of, all the things he never asked out loud.  
Suddenly, he reminded the taste of geppei, that Yao always called another way, and the quarrels because he used to say they weren't even real mooncakes. Oh, their mom was always laughing those days. Kiku never commented, he just used to eat them, silently, while his dad ruffled his hair.  
He reminded the smell of his mother's skin.  
It used to calm him.  
Kiku was sure that life would have been better one day.  
He touched his shoulder, where Natalia plunged the dagger. Still blood. Dark, black.  
The stairs seemed suddenly higher and moving. He skidded across the floor.  
When he opened again his eyes, he had a soft, mild hand on his forehead, the rather sweetly olive colour of it made Kiku recognize him before that he spoke.  
"Oh, you are awake!"  
"...lici..."  
"Don't talk too much. - he warned - You gave me a nasty turn!"  
"...I am mortified."  
Feliciano's kind smile seemed a light in the room.  
"Do you want something to eat? A warm broth?"  
"No, thank you...", he murmured, gently.  
Feliciano tilted his head, "Sure? You need your energy back."  
Kiku seemed kinder, quiet as ever but sweeter. Like he just found a sort of, long-wanted, long-waited, peace.  
"Did I fainted?"  
The Italian boy nodded, getting up, "I'll make you a tea, at least, with some honey.", he mumbled, searching for a mug. Kiku touched his shoulder, finding a gauze, white but stained, so that it was pratically pink. Feliciano medicated him.  
"...maybe you would like some explanations."  
"My husband is a policeman.", he said, he seemed absent-minded but was clearly pretending.  
"I know but-"  
Feliciano interrupted, "Witness?"  
Kiku shook his head, searching the most neautral sentence that could not have been considered a lie, "I am helping Alfred with a case."  
But the other man didn't seem convinced.  
His dark eyes were worried and tired, like they were watching an old, gloomy, movie, for the fifth time.  
"Once Gino fell from the table, he was so small, his paw was hurt, but he was so afraid of the vet that he refused to enter in his travel crate... - he gave a sigh - He was always crying, I was almost able to hear him saying 'no, no, please'. - his smile seemed brighter - But then Berlitz took him by the scruff of the neck and we managed to cure him."  
Kiku frowned.  
"Is it a sort of metaphor?"  
"If I let Gino doing what he wanted, he would still suffer, maybe. While now his paw is perfectly okay. - he continued - Sometimes, we are afraid of doing things that will help us, but, eventually, we have to trust others."  
"You are very... - he searched for a nice word - ...trusting."  
Feliciano laughed, "Oh yes, Ludwig says it too, everytime. - he gave Kiku a painkiller - But I truly think this helps me being happy."  
Kiku raised his head.  
"Happy?"  
Feliciano blinked, "Yes, Happy."  
Happy.  
Happy is a word that kids use.  
Happy is a simple word and, as every simple word, is a very big and important one.  
Being Happy.  
"Are you happy?"  
The Italian nodded, "This is the best life I could dream of."  
"But your job..."  
"Oh? Oh! - he seemed amused - But I just like to cook! As long as I can still do it, it's okay, and for the money, I have something in bank and we are just a little family, we don't need so much: a roof over the head and a bed where we can make love is really enough for me. - then he thought - Oh, well, even on the sofa or the parquet would be okay, I guess. But bed is more comfortable, and sometimes Lud becames quite rough and I don't like edges."  
Kiku blinked, slightly embarassed when his brain actually imagined the scene.  
Well, it was even enough strange to imagine Ludwig doing something ferociously passionate.  
Then he felt relieved, "I hope anyway you will find another work."  
"Do you cook well Kiku?"  
"Quite good.", he admitted.  
"Maybe we could open our restaurant one day: Italojapanese! It would be funny! - he laughed - Aren't we both the countries of the sun? We should call it 'The Sun', oh, no, wait, that's a newspaper, mhhh, what's the japanese for 'Oh sole mio' ?"  
The japanese boy cracked a giggle.  
"Your enthusiasm is contagious."  
"It's because I am with Kiku-chan!"  
"Chan?"  
"Don't you say so with friends?"  
"...yes, but, with emh, really important ones."  
Feliciano snorted, "You are important."

Matthew grabbed Alfred's arm.  
"Hey! Look at me!"  
The elder brother grumbled, "What's up, Matthie?"  
"What's up Matthie my arse. - he hissed, with his usually low voice, which always made his angry pitch slightly funny - You perfectly know what's happening. What about that gunfight? Are you involved? Are you still on Ivan's tail?"  
Alfred hesitated.  
He was not good at telling lies, expecially not to Matthew. His brother knew him better than anyone else in the world.  
"I am."  
"Al!", he begged.  
"I know, Matt, I know."  
"Do you really want to get yourself killed? Because that's exactly what will happen."  
"I want Justice."  
Matthew shook his head, "You are only risking your life."  
"Kyle did!"  
"Great idea! - Matthew whispered, sarcastically - Let's all imitate the dead guy."  
"I am sure I won't die."  
"This won't comfort dads when we will dig your grave, Al. - he held his bomber - I don't want to lose my brother... it's useless. There are things bigger than the police, things that we can't face without being squashed."  
Al gave a deep sigh, he looked at the buildings.  
They were in the park and around was full of kids playing and moms with buggies, and couples holding hands. The fresh air of Christmas coming soon.  
...what if it was the last one?  
"Do you remember why we became cops, Matthie?"  
The younger left the sleeve.  
"Because of your hero complex. - he laughed bitterly, then scratched his nape and replied, seriously - Because we wanted to do the right thing."  
Alfred confirmed with his head.  
"If there's no way to stop you, I won't try. - Matthew continued, frustrated - But let me know before doing something stupid."  
"Don't worry, today a spy put a mike in Ivan's office."  
"That's a stupid thing!"  
Alfred puffed, "...well, I will notify you before the action."  
"...I should have left you suffocating with lego."  
"Oh, c'mon, you love me, bro!"  
"I would also love not having a collection of ulcers."  
"You should name them."  
"Promise me you'll be prudent."  
Alfred didn't actually knew what to answer. He would have liked to ask Matthew to be brave, but it would have been too sad, or maybe just to trust him, but he was starting to doubt too. So.  
In the end, he simply replied.  
"I have things to protect."  
And that was his biggest truth.

* * *

Hello, hope this chapter was good, it was hard to write it, because of a lot of mood wings (bad moments, yay). I am sorry this fan fic is not so good, surely boring and full of mistakes. Really, I mean it. I wanna thank everyone who reads it. Thank you so much.


	5. Chapter 5

**#5 Gunpowder & Lead**

_The bed is unmade like everything is:_  
_dark little heaven at the top of the stairs._  
_Take me like that, ruin it all, then build it again..._

Kiku was in the bed, when Alfred entered.  
His eyes were open, he didn't pretend to sleep, but he didn't find the voice to talk him. It was like words were too heavy for him to bear them.  
Alfred understood.  
He sat near the japanese boy, wondering if it would be okay to touch him, just caresses, as if he were a child to calm down slowly. He felt slightly awkward, knowing human contact was not in the hit list of Kiku's favourite things in the world.  
His hand was mid-air and the american guy didn't know if put it down or not.  
Kiku gave a sigh.  
"I'm fine."  
Alfred frowned.  
He was lying again.  
Which was the right thing to do: to stay quiet? to reply? to tell he knew? to pretend he didn't? to hide? to kiss? to stare? to hold?  
Fuck.  
Why was it so fucking complicated?  
"I..."  
"I know you know."  
Alfred gasped, starting in surprise.  
"Just... - Kiku's breath was darkly tired - ...let me act for a little like it's not so evident."  
The blond man nodded, slowly.  
Kiku's black hair hid his face for a while, while his back seemed weaker, smaller and more fragile, like it were close to break. Like the wings of a robin under the pressure of some mean kid.  
His mouth quivered.  
The first cut, they say, is the deepest.  
Well, how deep that cut was? How beyond his reach?  
Alfred was just able to see the dull, reddish chaps on Kiku's ivory skin, the slight purplish shadow that will be a bruise the morning after. And the signs of his teeth still on Kiku's lips, like a brand.  
Alfred felt the fire in his veins.  
How far did Ivan go? How deep did he-?  
He opened the mouth, without even noticing, ready to shout, but Kiku sealed them with a kiss. His lips had the bitter aftertaste of a lie,of a denying, of all the things he didn't want to confess.  
Oh, but Life is way too short to be honest.  
"You talk too much."  
"And you too little."  
"Read the atmosphere."  
"Read the what?... - he frowned, then wided his eyebrow, muttering - Oh. Oh. Yes, yes. Sure, I..."  
"Read, not ruin.", Kiku gave a sigh.  
Alfred pouted, "I don't get you."  
Kiku smiled, sadly, while with a naughty pitch he said, "It's better this way, people always get tired of what's not a mistery."  
"I am not like that."  
"Everybody is like that."  
"I don't get tired: I can eat five hamburgers per day, watch a Superman movie fifthy times, no, I am confident I watched it even more, listen to the same Bruce Springsteen or Bon Jovi album for a lifetime, I never get tired."  
His eyes were bright. That killing blue again.  
Like an utopia.  
His American dream, his American fairytale.  
Kiku felt his heart wearing thin, his hands wanted to hold Alfred but, at the same time, he was terribly scared to not find him, not on the other side of that empty space between them.  
He was scared to lose him.  
Losing somebody else. Again.  
It would have been the death of him.  
Not again, please, not again...  
"I won't go getting tired of you."  
Kiku's black holes seemed to shine.  
He tried to catch the light he felt in the bottom of his heart, into the core.  
The walls around him were so high, so strong and tall, Kiku stopped to look outside, to glance at the world around him, searching for something pure and good. He stopped dreaming. He stopped asking himself if Hope even existed.  
The walls around him were so scary, he was alone. In the darkness.  
He felt safe and sound, but he was trapped.  
And that light cerulean blue, it was scary too. Because those eyes were the first thing he trusted in, after years.  
Because that man was kind, and forcefully enthusiastic and awkwardly caring.  
He started to want just only one, simple thing, one.  
He wanted Alfred to tear down those walls.  
He wanted Alfred to make the light enter.  
And then he felt again like the little, innocent Kiku, when his quiet and calm was not a syntompt of scars and sufference, and all he dreamed of was becoming a big, strong man, maybe a samurai or a power ranger. And to defeat darkness.  
With Yao, mom and dad.  
He felt alone so many years, so too many moments, it was hard even just considering the option of not being alone.  
Time doesn't heal anything.  
Time won't make anything better.  
Listen to this advice: stop listening to bullshit and wait for the time to fix up things. Let all of you collide with the world: love, hate, it doesn't matter if it's sadness, anger or sweetness.  
The right moment doesn't exist.  
"Show me your kind of love, then."  
Because the only one he thought was the one that ends with a broken heart or a broken leg.  
And he wanted a proof it was not the only one.  
Kiku kissed him, aggressively sweet, brutally seraphic.  
A thousand sounds in their heads, a thousand songs they listened a thousand times, about those moments you are so happy you could even die and you wouldn't care. And the desire of being broken, of tear apart each other, like to delete a bad memory carved in their skin.  
It was cold.  
The air was cruel.  
The light blue in Alfred's eyes was raw. Dense. Mellow and sharp.  
A slight taste of honey in Kiku's mouth, the moans, the way he arched his back calling him.  
Al, Al, Al.  
Alfred took the thin japanese hips in his hands, bringing them closer to his waist. Every inch was incredibly soft, like the petal of a flower.  
It was almost impossible to think that something so angular and little could have been so... infinite, so perfect in itself.  
His work of art.  
His beautiful, perfect, cautious, mistrustful, honeyed Kiku.  
The brunette hold Alfred's shoulders, sucking his lips, his ear, leaving little reddish signs and signatures. He felt like he lost his voice, when the american started to touch him deeper.  
Then he actually was put on mute when Alfred put his fingers into the little, soft, warm mouth.  
It was so strange... so too much beautiful to stand it.  
He bit Alfred's hand and felt him moan, roar, sinking into him.  
A silver moon bleeding blue outside the window, a strange, icy wind, dropping shivers on their spines, the sick, haunting fear that would have been the last possibility to- to?  
Oh, it was ridicolous.  
Oh, it was perfect.  
Kiku holding the sheets, his feet nervously shaking and stretching, tenser and tenser, until it was almost hurting. And his breath, shattered, interrupted, suffocated by Alfred's voracious mouth.  
The odoriferous, mellifluous, dulcet pitch of Kiku's voice.  
Higher and higher.  
He was running after the pleasure.  
Like he finally lost himself, like he finally found a place where the pain sinks, into his chest and his hips, disappearing.  
As the corners became blurry, all he felt, all he was sure of was Alfred. Biting Alfred's neck, biting that flesh and feeling that taste, that presence.  
He was not alone.  
He was not alone.  
Alfred entered with a deep, dark, thrust. And all the muscles seemed close to break but closer to ecstasy.  
Kiku screamed, feeling Alfred into his flesh, feeling the sand colour of his skin crumbling.  
All the black of his soul was rising.  
He was not trapped anymore.  
As the American continued to invade his rear, Kiku buried his short nails in Alfred's back.  
He was pratically biting the air, clenching his teeth, praying that time to end soon and to last for the eternity.  
He heard Alfred whispering in his ears, with an hoarse, cracked voice.  
"I love you."  
He felt a thrill, like pure pleasure running through his spine and breaking in his hips, while Alfred kept pulling.  
"Don't say... - a moan - ..such..." another moan, then stopped.  
The shoves became harder, even angry.  
"Is it so out of line to want you?"  
"Al, Al. - he called, with the voice almost like liquid sugar - I'm close."  
"Is it so out of line to love you?"  
Kiku gave a squirmy, wet scream, while Alfred took his wrist, holding him tighter and then came, with a growl. The japanes bit his own hand, trying to suffocate his whimpering grunts as he reached climax.  
He crawled, shivering.  
Alfred kissed him again, without listening to any weak, false, protest. He widened again those soft, pale legs and Kiku wasagain tingled with pleasure.  
On everything there was a blue light- painted with the same colour of Alfred's eyes.  
Kiku gave up, surrounded.  
Finally.

_Dear Mom,_  
_this is a cold morning._  
_Everything is icy, here, but New York is pretty during winter._  
_Kiku is learning to iceskate._  
_I am angry._  
_A lot. I don't even know anymore why, where all this anger comes from- I lost track of all the past scars and directions and now I only feel lik in a giant ocean of wrath._  
_On my back there are only daggers, but all my killers got lost, thrown along the way, like dusted, old papers and nonsense hopes._  
_There is a man, Ivan._  
_You wouldn't have liked him._  
_But you wouldn't even have liked what I became, so, maybe, it's okay this way._  
_You would like the boy Kiku is becoming, though._  
_He is the best student in his class: he won a spelling prize, he keeps correcting my 'aru' when I use it at the restaturant, but, you know, clients... you have to give them treats, like kids. He also won a science prize and an art contest._  
_He said he want to be a scientist and a mangaka. But lately he said he would like to be a sidekick, in his opinion he's not an hero, but a sidekick can be pretty useful too. _  
_He is so cute!_  
_He asked me to buy a dog, and a cat too. He wants to call them Pochi and Tama. We can't afford them, right now, but maybe one day._  
_He does not like Ivan neither._  
_Ivan likes him, I think. He said so. Not that I trust Ivan._  
_Ivan loves me, his own way, I'm okay with it, until now... he seems alone, he is a little jealous and possessive, but if you look in his sad eyes so see so much pain, it gets clear for you, for everyone that, well, actually, he really must had endured some big hurt in the past._  
_Dear mom, you should see him. And protect me._  
_We are doing just fine._  
_Sometimes we fall, sometimes we get hurt, but really for two orphans with deep-fried smelling clothes, we have a pretty fantastic life._  
_I have Kiku._  
_I could be more happy, true, but if I didn't have him, I couldn't be sadder. So, you see, I am not good at complicated things but, if you have something that makes the difference between happy and sad, you are lucky. At least to me._  
_Ivan is not like that._  
_He is not happy._  
_Not even with me. He is less sad, but I can see in his eyes I can't make that difference._  
_Nothing can anymore, probably._  
_You can see in his eyes, he is always trapped in a frozen, cold memory. He wants everything, he holds on everything, he devours everything, maybe, but he never let himself get lost._  
_The snow is not different. _  
_Here or in Japan, it is the same, always the same._  
_"Kiku!"_  
_He turns, his big, dull eyes are happy. Even if I am the only one who can tell._  
_"Let's return home, Kiku, it's getting dark."_  
_He stop building his snowman and runs to me, holds my hand tightly and pratically leads me, like a little man. ...he's so adorable, oh! So cute, so cute._  
_"Yao."_  
_"Call me big brother!" _  
_"Yao."_  
_"If you call me big brother, I will listen."_  
_He puffs and then became silent._  
_Oh, mom._  
_I am sorry you can't see how nice your little Kicchan became._  
_I smile as he turns to me, "What do you want, Kiku?"_  
_"Can we please have an hot chocolate before going home?"_  
_"Hot chocolate?"_  
_"...is it selfish to ask for it?"_  
_"As long as I can have one too, not!"_  
_He smiles quietly, half hidden by the scarf._  
_He is my little Kiku, my sweet little life._  
_"Where do you want to drink it?"_  
_"Even a kiosk is okay..."_  
_"No, if we have a hot chocolate, it will be the best hot chocolate of the world!"_  
_"...but money..."_  
_"When it comes to food, you can't be a penny-pincher."_  
_Kiku frowns, not sure if all that idea has sense, but eventually nods. Mh, now I must found a solution... a nice place, not very expensive... and there!_  
_In a couple blocks, there's that chocolaterie. _  
_The lights are low, as I remembered, there is still that victorian viridian wallpaper, with baroque flowers, and everywhere a sweet aroma of chocolate, in every possible declination the mind could think to._  
_And, oh, god, metal, maybe even silver forks and spoons-_  
_Kiku panicks._  
_"We can't afford it, Yao."_  
_"Trust me."_  
_Sitting on a table we wait for the waiter and she arrives soon: the adorable girl waved at the us, coming closer. She is even blonder than what I remember everytime I see her._  
_"Oh, Yao! Good morning. - she turns to Kiku - Oh, don't tell me this jelly roll made of cuteness is your little brother!"_  
_Kiku remains silent : he doesn't like this question. I give a sigh, nodding, "He wanted to have a little sweet snack."_  
_"For you, everything. - she grants, then tuns to Kiku - Your brother is very strong and generous, you should be proud, kitty."_  
_Kitty._  
_That's a nice nickname._  
_I would like to protect him like a kitty, save him from anything bad, making sure he is safe and sound. From everything in the world._  
_"...mh, do you have hot chocolates or something like that?"_  
_"Everyone you want and with every topping: caramel, meringues, marshmallow, hazelnut..."_  
_Kiku widens his eyes, like he saw heaven, he seems afraid to drool._  
_He bites his lips looking at a big menu, with all that elegant fonts and styles. He never saw something so beautiful, before._  
_"Do you also want a cake?", she asks._  
_"But, miss, I don't..."_  
_"It will be a present, okay? Do you trust Belle, kitty?", she smiles and Kiku blushes slightly._  
_He likes kind people._  
_Kind, maybe a little extrovert._  
_Because he is really too introvert, isn't it?, and he is not good in starting, nor keeping, conversations. But he likes, he really really do, to listen to people talking._  
_After we orders, I take Kiku's hands in mine._  
_"They seem popsicles. I will buy you some gloves."_  
_And Kiku mumbles something I don't hear._  
_"One day, we will come here again. - I promise - And we will be very rich. You will have gloves and even a woollen hat."_  
_Kiku doesn't believe me._  
_Neither do I._  
_But someone here must pretend for both._

Alfred put on a dark shirt.  
There was a strange scent on his hands. He was kind of used to some smells: fries, soap, the cat, gunpowder. Expecially gunpowder.  
He gave a sigh, sitting on the table, on which he had the little radio turned on. Thanks to a little bug, they should have been able to listen to Ivan's words in his office.  
Alfred gave a quick glance at Kiku.  
"Do you have any ideas how many people will be with him, during the night?"  
"Not the slightest... - he admitted - Surely that Byelorussian, Natalia."  
"And Toris."  
"And maybe Irina, the Iron Maiden..."  
"Shit. It would be enough like this to be a problem, and surely there will be also someone else."  
Kiku bit his lips, nervously.  
Then something on the radio drew their attention.  
"Yes, it would be better to anticipate. Yes, _desyat'_. _Olga_. Da, be sure to bring a wheelchair."  
The japanese and the american exchanged a tense look.  
"What the hell did we just hear?"  
Kiku gave a sigh, "I am not good in Russian, but..."  
"Okay, let's do it the american way!"  
"...entering in their office with a machine-gun?"  
Alfred opened his laptop, "Google."  
Kiku did a resigned facepalm.  
"Let me see... mh, what did he said? Desha? Kesha?"  
"Desyat'."  
Kiku stole the laptop from Alfred's hand and started to type.  
"Whoa! At the speed of light."  
"Hackering is a good way to make up your wages.", he explained, quickly.  
"Here, look, _Desyat Negrityat_ is the russian translation of Ten Little Niggers, so, supposing _Negrityat_ is Niggers, _Desyat'_ must be... Ten."  
"...yes, but ten what?"  
"Maybe it's an hour? He talked about bringing something, they probably need to meet."  
"But Europeans don't use them AM-PM system, and I doubt he will meet someone in the morning."  
"True..."  
"...what is today's date?"  
Kiku understood, "Ten days days. His birthday is in eleven days."  
"So he want to anticipate it... tomorrow."  
"But where?"  
"Olga, Olga, Olga, what does it even mean in Russian?"  
"It's a name."  
"Oh. - Alfred clacked his tongue against the palate - So, the name of a friend?"  
"I doubt someone so rich would organize something so... not spectacular."  
"Then what?"  
Kiku typed again, while speaking to Alfred, "Do you remember the password? For the_ Matryoshka_?"  
"Violette."  
"Do you know what that means?"  
"I guess it's a vodka flavour."  
Kiku gave a sigh, "I'm sure not... what was the word before? Mh. _Malenkaya_."  
Alfred nodded, "Yes."  
After some quick researches, while his fingers seemed almost bewitched, Kiku talked again, "It's the nickname for Anastasia."  
"...the princess?"  
"Mh, mh. - he continued to watch the screen - And, she had three sisters: Tatjana, Maria and... Olga."  
"Bingo!"  
"...but what does violette has to do with it?"  
"Maybe her favourite vodka flavour."  
"Do you know we are talking about killed people, right?"  
Alfred puffed and snorted.  
"Anastasia, violette, Ol... here it is."  
"What did you found?"  
"A perfume. Every princess had one: Anastasia's one was violette."  
"So Olga's one is the password of an haunt named by her?"  
"Rose. Rose is the perfume."  
"So, the wheelchair?"  
"A weapon, maybe, or some bodyguard. - Kiku was not satisfied - But how do we found out what kind of place Olga is?"  
"Toris... - Kiku avoided to glare at Alfred - Toris used to talk about a ship, called "The Rose"."  
"...a ship is spectacular enough, I guess."  
Kiku's pitch was colder than ever.  
"Did I say something wrong?", Alfred seemed sorry.  
"Nevermind. We have no time."  
"It's dangerous to go alone, I'll call Matthew."  
Kiku this time roared, "If this is a stupid trick to prevent me from killing Ivan..."  
"It's not. - he granted - It's my way to prevent us to become fish food."  
"Japanese men don't like when people get in the way of their revenge."  
"American men don't like when their lovers get killed in a stupid way."  
Kiku stuttered and blushed brightly.  
"Impudent!"  
Alfred smiled, letting the tension fading away "Impudent? We really need to semplify your personal vocabulary."  
"Cheeky, cheeky, cheeky!"  
"...you really get embarassed for stupid things, considering you an be so sensu..."  
"Can we focus on the mission, hory..."  
"Hory?"  
"Holy."  
"...your japanese accent pops up, when embarassed?"  
Kiku glared at him.  
His eyes showed something: he was pissed-off, annoyed... embarassed. Dark holes with a light in the end.  
Maybe Alfred just learned how to light them.  
Or to read them.  
It was, anyway, incredibly heart-warming.  
"I'll ask Matthew to help us."  
"Can we not cut Ludwig in on this?"  
Alfred raised an eyebrow, "Are you worried for him?"  
"You had your life hurt my Ivan. I had mine. - he stood up - I can't allow Feliciano to pay my same tribute."  
The blond american smiled again, "How is it you are always kind with everyone except me?"  
"I am just... not letting myself do it."  
Alfred didn't understand.  
"I will cover your back.", he promised.  
Kiku looked sad, "Just focus on riddling Ivan with bullets."

_Alfred entered the room._  
_Arthur was at the table, sewing, and gave him a strict, dark, look._  
_"So... - the son started - I... sort of joined the police force."_  
_"Do you expect me to congratulate?"_  
_Francis arrived and whispered, "He's nervous, don't worry. - sipped his tea - Just, let him... you know, digest it."_  
_"I can hear you both.", Arthur hissed._  
_Alfred gave a deep, annoyed, sigh, "Matt?"_  
_"In the garage. - Francis slapped Alfred's back - He is waiting for you."_  
_As soon as the boy left the living room, Francis glared at Arthur, "Why can't you stop being such an asshole?"_  
_"Don't even try to give me that you are not worried as hell too."_  
_"Obviously I am worried! - the french shouted, exasperated, "I am just hoping Matthieu won't do the same, but what I am supposed to do? It's a good work and their dream."_  
_"It's dangerous."_  
_"Life is dangerous."_  
_"I don't want my son to be killer because he's an hot-headed, hot-tempered, hot-idiot."_  
_Francis sat near Arthur, "Me neither."_  
_Arthur threw to the ground what he was sewing before._  
_"The teddy bear didn't do anything bad."_  
_"He exists."_  
_"Alfred is doing it anyway, with or without our approval."_  
_"So we have to lie? Francis, he could really be shot. Will you be able to stay here, twenty-four hours a day, for all our lives, wondering if he will die today or tomorrow? I can't. I can't. He... - Arthur took a deep breath, inhaleted, slowly - He is so reckless. So bloody reckless."_  
_Francis kept on looking at the ground, like he was close to hit it._  
_"Sulking and holding grudge won't smooth things over. It won't settle them and he will just go ever more distant."_  
_Then?_  
_Which was the solution? There was one, at least? What were they supposed to do?_  
_Arthur rubbed hiseyes._  
_"I am not like you. I can't pretend everything is fine, when it's not."_  
_Francis took a cigarette and lit it._  
_"He is stronger than both of us."_  
_"Physically, but-"_  
_"Even mentally."_  
_Arthur bit his bottom lips, then stood up and kicked the knocked out teddy bear._  
_He used to make them for the in-patient children of the Hospital. Cheesy. And now he kept thinking about when, one they, he would have gone at the Hospital, not with soft plushes in the hands, trying to smile in order not to scare the kids with his glare, but with his arms empty and trying not to cry, because his sn was there and tears would have just made everything more pathetical. And painful._  
_The moment was so real in his mind, he almost felt sick._  
_He would have liked to curl up and hide the face behind arms and legs. _  
_The bitter, harsh, disgusting taste of nausea in his mouth was just too real._  
_"Am I supposed to be proud?"_  
_"Even happy.", Francis replied, taking the teddy bear and staring at it._  
_An eye came unstitched._  
_From the garage they both heard the distand laughs of Matthew and Alfred._  
_Somehow, Francis knew that signs and destiny don't exist, but, holding that damaged toy, he had the sensation they were._  
_Reality can be scary, even when it's pretty good, isn't it?_  
_Their son didn't become a pusher nor a criminal, but they kept worrying like he was. He choosed a great, honourable way, but they were not happy._  
_Not even a little._


	6. Chapter 6

**6# Happiness Is A Warm Gun**

"You know, the idea of certain death is not exactly _thrilling_.", Alfred chuckled.

Kiku was panting, slowly, "Try to survive."

"If we survive both, can I make a wish?"

Alfred was almost able to see, in the darkness of the room, the Japanese glare of disapproval.

"Hey, just sayin'..."

"Choose wisely."

The American guy held his gun and tried to listen studiousness to every sound. But nothing seemed to move and around there was just an heavy silence.

"There are ten centimetres of dust in this hold. Is it a ship or an hourglass?"

"I doubt Ivan's priority was to clean here."

"Cosplay."

"What?"

"The wish. - his voice was damn serious - An Avengers cosplay."

"You can't possibly be older than eight years old."

"You and my dad will get along: he says it everytime."

Kiku's eyes lowered in embarrassment. He was not sure what he expected, somehow it was really ridiculous how childish Alfred was, even if what it costed him the most to admit is he found that kid heart rather perfect.

He started to consider himself lucky.

"You'll make a nice Cap."

"I am kind of jubilant inside."

"Keep a grip on your inner fan boy until tomorrow, please."

It was hot and moist, but it had been already very difficult to find a decent place where to hide, waiting for "The Rose" to sail. It took them patience and time.

Alfred also took with him a shameful amount of food with him. He said it would have been really stupid to starve while waiting and that the energy was necessary for their plan; still, even if he agreed, Kiku was slightly grossed out by the mix of Hershey chocolate and cheeseburgers he saw in Alfred's hands in the space of a few minutes.

"Milky way?"

"How do you even put all this stuff in you without getting fat?"

"You are the skinny one."

"I am not skinny!", Kiku seemed slightly offended.

Alfred blinked, "May I ask something stupid?"

"Do you ever avoid it?"

"Usually, I am just intrusive."

"My bad. - Kiku smirked, with an heavy sigh - Go ahead."

"Do you think your brother would be proud of you?"

The Japanese boy bit his lips and let his eyes running in the moist darkness of the hold, while strange, he thought forgotten, memories came to his mind, violently.

"No, he wouldn't."

Alfred tried to spoke, but Kiku continued.

"But it's not like I am taking a revenge for him, not for him alone, anyway. I ended up believing solitude was my home, my natural state, but isn't it just another kind of brain-washing? Then truth is way simpler: I grew up alone and I felt completely lost."

"...I've always been surrounded by love, I am not sure I can understand."

"It's not something I wish anyone to understand."

Kiku's voice was pithy, prickly. And tired.

Tired and bitterness-soaked.

_My blood is Radioactive - My heart is nuclear._

_Love is all that I fear... _

"He wouldn't want me to kill Ivan.", Kiku confessed.

"...then you don't have to."

"But I want. - he inhaled the heavy darkness - He wouldn't want me to kill him, but I never wanted my brother to die and then Ivan didn't respected it. What I am doing is reaffirm my right of will."

Alfred lowered his head, banging his head against his knees and puffing.

"I hope Elvis will be all right."

"He won't starve, that's for sure."

"... can you stop saying my cat is fat?"

"You mean the meowing pig?"

"You really are unfair."

"My hobbies include reading the atmosphere, sleeping and not being on a friendly footing with people."

"What's about Japanese tendency of not being offensive?"

"You are really unnerving. - he said, Alfred was about to reply - Somehow also in a good way."

The American thanked the darkness for hiding his silly and embarrassed expression.

Kiku waited for himself to understand what was on his mind.

He never found himself before thinking about someone else intensely nor densely. His depth perception became blurred and it was like everything, every little thing, led to Alfred.

Not even consciously. It was not possible to control it, anyway.

It was deeper than the skin and even than the flesh.

It was inside a part of his body that was no longer physical, but not even spiritual, because - let's be sincere - there was nothing spiritual about his feelings. Nothing pure, nothing scared.

It was like walking in the dark...

What was he supposed to do? How to feel?

And Alfred was so... bossy. And selfish. And kind. And idealist.

He grew up wanting to be an hero, but heroes don't exist, not naturally, so he just found himself in the wrong world.

Was he even real? And that dark side of him, the one that wanted control, that was violent, possessive, why wasn't Kiku scared of it?

He felt, suddenly, awfully, close to Yao.

Was that what feelings make to people? Making them feel the desire to get lost, to melt, to lose their barriers - and so their weapons - and crashing into someone else's soul?

Is this the way it works, usually?

He was an adult, they were both adults. And there was no time for skipping heartbeats and gasping nor whispering under the moonlight.

Isn't it?

But then it tasted so good.

Having sex, making love: labels never meant so much to Kiku.

But then he felt an urge to know.

And, in the meanwhile, he didn't really wanted to know... because, if he knew, if he really really knew... and if the answer were 'that one' before a deadly battle.

Is it so out of line to love you? - That was what Alfred asked him.

Is it so out of line to love you?

Love.

Oh yes, it was out of line. It was foolish, too.

And unstable.

But it was beautiful.

_Ready to be let down, _

_now I'm heading for a meltdown._

Yao caressed the red dress, where was a hand-stitched gold dragon. His hands hesitated on his immobile legs.

The weak warmth of his skin, his fingertips lingering on silk, while his mind was lost in a thought that Ivan was not able to understand.

He tried everything.

Like a greedy owner, who cuts a bird's wings, he tried to make him unable to go away.

Like a child, who prefers to break a toy instead of giving it to someone else, he wanted Yao to belong to him and only him.

But there were limits and enclosures.

In his memories, Yao was free.

In his memories, Yao didn't belong to anyone.

It was dangerous.

His Yao, his beautiful Yao.

Ivan wasn't able to accept it: the idea of a part of the man that he was not able to own, to control, to be the king of. He wanted everything of him. The first thought and all the other ones, every part of his heart, every inch of his soul.

He wanted to be the only ink on the pages of his mind.

The centre of everything and the Everything itself.

He was voracious, he was eager.

He wanted more.

He was greedy.

He wanted it all.

"You are beautiful."

Yao smiled in return, "Thank you."

"Red really suits you."

"You say so just because it's your favourite colour."

True.

His favourite colour on his favourite little bird.

"Natalya is coming?"

"Toris, actually. - Ivan smiled coldly, as ever - I asked him to arrive as soon as possible."

"Oh, Toris...", replied, colourless.

In the mirror, his reflection seemed tired, exhausted. His round face, usually childish, graceful, seemed just swollen. His dark, shiny eyes, were only dull. And sad. There was a strange, mixed, bitter feeling, quivering on his lips, trasforming the velvet voice in something cold. And rough.

Suddenly, he seemed old.

While he always gave everyone the impression of being younger than Ivan, in that moment his look seemed centuries old.

Ivan frowned, disappointed. Annoyed. Almost disgusted.

He was left out, again, ignored, again.

He caressed Yao's neck, trying to draw his attention, lingering on the muscles and the bones.

The feeling of how fragile it was, crossed him.

Just a little pressure and he would have Yao's eyes again, looking only at him, loving only him.

Instead of missing.

Yao missed Kiku.

Badly, in a massive, devouring way.

Their deal, though, was perfectly clear, even without any words: the two of them, nobody else. And whoever didn't agree was not wanted.

He didn't killed Kiku, it wasn't necessary.

But Yao accepted to be in his web and that meant he was not allowed to look at anybody else, to miss anybody else, to love anybody else. Not even a brother.

The two of them.

Nobody else.

Yao gave him a glance, "You seem thoughtful..."

"No. - Ivan smiled - I am just a little tired, work has been terrible these days."

"Maybe you could..."

"Take an holiday?"

"Maybe."

"Do you want to go somewhere?", he asked, affectionately, kissing the chin and the lobe of the lover.

"Beijing.", he whispered.

Ivan's skin turned colder, like metal.

The Asian lowered his head, while with his hands he opened a little earring, ready to wear it.

"And Russia, if you want to. - his voice became gentle like waves - I never visited it and I bet it's beautiful."

"It is."

"I wonder if the snow in Russia is different from here."

Ivan blinked, "Different? Well, it's just more, I think."

"Here the snow is always so... wasted. Cars dirt it, we throw it away, it's waited only for Christmas, but then nobody really like it. Everyone complains, except children."

"This doesn't change the snow itself."

Yao smiled, slightly amused, like Ivan was just a naive boy and he didn't understand the meaning of his words. Well, speaking cryptically was not the thing he was better at, but, still, sometimes, it was easier to hide the truth behind something.

It was less painful and less shameful.

And Yao was really tired of pain and shame.

He was sure of it: Love changes a lot.

He didn't have a proof, also, he was pretty sure that he wouldn't ever have one, but that was his faith. Love changes things, changes events, changes men.

Love means something, means a lot.

He was ready to love Ivan, he did for years.

Yes, he was scared, sometimes terrified and there were days he was struck by the thought of their bed floating on a lake of red blood.

Red: Ivan's favourite colour.

Like children do.

A warm, energetic, bright colour, the colour of the sweetest candy, the colour of the simplest things.

He knew who was the man to his side.

Love doesn't mean to accept everything, it means you don't want to go anywhere else, no matter how deep those shadows were, because they were Ivan's ones.

Even if Ivan's hands on his skin was scary and they seemed to burn, like a stake, Yao knew he wouldn't have been anywhere else.

Even if it was self-harming.

Deals are meant to be respected.

Aren't they?

The holes in his ankles burned.

.

In the afternoon, Kiku took some hours of sleep. Waiting was getting as tiring as it would have been fighting, the oxygen was not exactly abundant, the darkness too made him sleepy. With a dry moan, he curled up, right next to Alfred and asked him to wake him up when necessary.

Alfred remained quietly looking at him.

And thinking.

He spent his whole life trying to do the right thing, the noble one, wanting to be the somebody's hero. He always searched for a bright road to walk on, his yellow brick road. He wanted to be something more than human.

Something impossible, something higher.

And there he was.

The temptation of running away touched his chest, sensually.

The idea of being happy and forget.

He thought he was good in facing problems, but for some reasons he was sure something like that was too big.

He didn't want to die.

He didn't want Kiku to die.

He inhaled, then decided to do at least the online thing he was able to. He stood up, took the key from the hold's door, looked at the Japanese boy and closed the door.

That was the only thing he was able to do.

Preventing Kiku from going out would have meant to save him from himself and his vengeance plans.

Alfred imagined Kiku protesting, angry, trying to keep a composed appearance, while wanting to kill him. The American chuckled light.

That was funny... imagining to survive, them both.

And then?

He tried not to think about it, but, well, maybe. Maybe.

He gave a sigh: no time for being a funny douchebag.

He found a waitress and knocked his head, enough to make him faint - hopefully - then dressed up with his tuxedo and took the tray. Alfred was genuinely a disaster in remember the structure of buildings and ships were even more difficult, so he opted for following the green arrows heading to the saloon.

When he arrived, he was finally able to see the sky: a black lagoon of stars and a floating pearly moon. It was cold, but it didn't seem a freezing December night. There was a quite big amount of people, Alfred recognized quickly some high finance personalities with their wives, then, at every corner there was a little number of bodyguards and Ivan's men.

He sincerely hoped Matthew to arrive soon.

And Toris not to be near, he would have surely recognized him without any doubt.

"Excuse me, sir."

Shit.

Alfred turned, slowly.

"Roderich?"

The man put a finger on his lips, asking him for silence, "Why are you here?"

"I could ask the same..."

"Under cover. Officially, I play the piano."

"Elizavetha is here too?"

"All the three of us. - he whispered - Gilbert is placing some of his stuff around, Elizavetha is trying to contact your brother."

Alfred seemed relieved, "Well, at least, I won't face the Iron Maiden alone."

"I'd be more worried about the Ice queen right there."

Roderich pointed Natalya with the eyes, then took something from Alfred's tray.

"I hate shrimps."

"What's the plan?"

"If I can give you an advice, run out of "The Rose" in one hour."

Alfred didn't seem to listen, stubborn as ever.

"Ivan is already here?"

"Yes. - Roderich's pitch showed his annoyance - Some minutes ago."

"Did you see if he had some kind of weapon with him?"

"The usual, why?"

"At the phone he talked about a wheelchair, I thought it could be a codename for..."

Roderich raised an eyebrow, "...for a wheelchair."

"What?"

"There was one person on a wheelchair, with him, before."

"Who?"

"Never saw him, or her, I confess I am not sure."

"...well, you get confused sometimes."

"Shut up."

"Sorry."

Roderich muttered, "An Asian I suppose a close friend or a lover. I have no idea who he was anyway."

"Asian?"

"Yes..."

"Son of a bitch, he has a kink..."

He grumbled again, in a low voice, "What's the matter?"

"Kiku, I..."

"Kiku?"

In that moment, a beautiful woman, with dark brown hair, arrived.

"Roderich, it's time to... - he frowned - Alfred?"

The Austrian spy shrugged his shoulders, "Les enfants terribles."

"Lizzie.", Alfred smiled.

Elizavetha gave a deep sigh, "I was sure the only kid I had to babysit this time was Gil."

"He is still the most problematic."

The girl took a canapé, whispering, "I hate shrimps."

Roderich smiled, quietly.

"Lizzie, where is Ivan?"

"You know face him alone, don't be stupid.", Roderich warned.

Alfred protested, trying hardly to keep his voice as low as possible, "I won't let him escape."

"He will come in the ballroom as soon as Roderich starts to play, for sure."

"Rachmaninoff, his favourite.", the Austrian tried to keep to himself an acid comment.

Alfred continued, "I will shot him."

Elizavetha was ready to tell him not to, but Roderich was faster, "You have only one try."

"It's all that I need."

.

A mechanical, sharp, laugh crossed the corridor.

Kiku, who woke up some minutes before, just to find himself trapped in the hold, crawled against the wall, took his Kubikiri and waited.

He heard the muffled voice of a man trying to open the door and prepared to attack.

As he moved, though, his nimbleness was useless: the man blocked him quickly, avoiding the dagger.

"Whoa, kid, that's rude! "

The man tried to twist Kiku's arm, then the Japanese turned him over, with a fast stroke. As he hit the floor, he gave again that strange laugh, similar to a hyena.

"That's gonna be funny."

In the penumbra, Kiku was able just to tell his aggressor was very slim, tall, with a pale, haggard face and a mocking grin.

"Your sense of humour is disputable."

The man drew his gun, "I've seen your type, bring a knife into a gun fight..."

Kiku raise an eyebrow, emotionless, then extracted from his pocket something.

"I am not that unwary."

He smiled, "A Colt Python. I think I'm in love."

"Where is Ivan?"

"I was searching him, too, darling."

Kiku frowned, lowering the revolver, "You are not...?"

"One of his men? Pfft. Please! - he laughed - I am more like a freelancer. - he came closer - Now, since you don't seem exactly in good terms with the long nose, what about... you know, avoiding an useless gunfire? I am not exactly into useless splatter."

Kiku, slowly, agreed.

"What's your name?"

"They call me 'the awesome'."

"...does someone actually calls you like that?"

"For somebody with such a cute face you are really mean."

"My bad, I was too outspoken."

The man lit a cigarette, then said, "Gilbert, by the way."

"Why are you here?"

"Ah, normal stuff: placing bombs, knocking out the guards... this smell... is chocolate?"

Kiku interrupted him, "Bombs? on this ship?"

"Yeah, you know, putting holes in ships is a good way to make them sink."

He grabbed Gilbert's black shirt, "You can't make it sink! We must found Alfred, first."

"Who?"

"He is trying to kill Ivan. He must be somewhere close him."

"Don't hyperventilate, kid. - Gilbert mocked - We will find your friend, but, first, lend me an helping hand."

"...what do you need?"

"The control room."

Kiku decided to trust the man, so followed him, when the light was stronger, he was able to notice how the other man's hair was a platinum blond, practically white, and the eyes were bloody red. The man seemed quite strange: sometimes, he was laughing or talking at himself, muttering, but he was also strong and quick. A good mix between a laboratory white mouse and a panther.

"Why are you searching Ivan?", asked, point-blank.

Kiku dithered, "Personal issues."

"I am not a fan of him either... - he seemed more willing to talk about himself than actually listen - Nor of his interrogatory methods."

"Did you face him?"

Gilbert tilted his head, nervously, "I risked becoming one with mother Russia, you could say."

Kiku saw some scars on the man's hands.

"Are you working alone?"

"Nope. - Gilbert found a little door, opened it and then signaled him to enter - My... colleagues should be in the ballroom, right now."

The albino stopped, suddenly, and Kiku with him.

"Oh shit."

A blond, green-eyed guy smiled, darkly, sharply. He had an heavy polish accent.  
"Long time not see, Gil, darling."

"I would have avoided interrupting this record, Feliks."

Kiku whispered, "Who is he?"

"The flamboyant flamingo? Get out of here and I will tell you."

He drew a long knife, then chuckled, sinister, "I hope your masochistic tendencies are not faded away."

"Feliks, how many times will I have to tell you you are not my type? - then he turned to the Japanese - Go away, I will be busy with Barbie for a little. Find the control room and provoke a blackout."

"But..."

"Go!"

Feliks showed a bored expression, "...have you done?"

As Gilbert pelted and blocked Feliks, who was hurled to the ground, Kiku rushed out of the room, trying to find a way for reaching the destination. Luckily, he found the electric panel and shut the level down, without any hesitation.

The dark arrived.

Dense, deep.

A series of shooting broke the air, the sounds of gunfire were heavy and glacial icy.

He just hoped Alfred to be safe.

.

Elizavetha shouted, "After this mission, I swear, I'll take a long holiday."

Alfred panted, loading again his revolver.

"I'm sorry I missed him."

Roderich shook his head, trying to find a way out, "It's not your fault, Irina found out. We can just be grateful to Gilbert for the blackout."

"As much as I don't want to admit it...", Elizavetha nodded.

The arrived on the deck, where the wind was strong, and the blinding darkness was interrupted only by the moon and the few lights of the maritime port.

The woman looked down in the sea.

"Time to jump."

"Yes. - Roderich grabbed Alfred's arm - Let's go."

"No, I can't."

"The ship is gonna explode, Al, I don't want to collect your pieces with a spoon."

"I locked Kiku in a the hold and..."

"You did what?"

"I didn't want him to get hurt."

Elizavetha seemed nervous, "Rod, honey, I hate urge you to hurry, but it would be really necessary..."

"I must go back.", Alfred said.

Roderich bit his lips, then took a deep breath.

"They are arriving, we will cover your back."

"Thank you, Rod."

"The best thank you would be stopping having only complicated relationships."

Elizavetha gave up and, with a sigh, said the blond guy to go searching for his friend, then took her beloved rifle.

"A long, long holiday, Rod."

"What about Paris?"

"You'd better choose a nice hotel this time.", she smiled, shooting at the first Ivan's men coming closer.

Alfred found himself thinking that, during Thanksgiving, he should have really been grateful for his pocket torch. He was running in the corridors, but the more he saw fainted guards on the ground, the more in him rose a suspect, that was confirmed when, arrived at the hold, he found the door opened.

He shivered, deeper than under his skin. Directly into his heart.

"Kiku..."

Where? And how to find him in less than half an hour?

He run back his way, this time calling him out loud. No answer.

The dark became even deeper, when, suddenly, he heard the noise of the first bomb exploding. "The Rose" trembled.

Alfred remembered why he hated so much Titanic.

He just hoped Kiku to be safe. But he knew the possibilities were too low, too scary and a gloom, strange, sickness took his stomach.

All for his stupid stubborn revenge. Their stupid stubborn revenge.

Then Alfred stopped; he saw him.

Ivan, holding onto a metal pole, with his head and his right leg bleeding. The floor was stained with his dark, red blood. Next to him, an Asian figure, trembling, unable to stand up.

Alfred directed the gun at him.

Then a voice, like broken glass, stopped him.

"No! Please, no!"

The Asian shielded Ivan with his body.

Reckless, regardless.

His eyes were full of tears, his voice seemed melted by terror.

"Please, don't kill him."

Alfred swallowed, looking straight into those beautiful eyes. He was sure, they resembled some he already saw before.

He seemed- no.

"Your name... is Yao?"

The man's eyes widened, he gasped, terrified.

"Do you know Kiku?"

"Why are you alive? - Alfred shouted, without lowering his revolver - He is sure you are."

Ivan coughed, spitting blood. Yao shivered, then held him, tightly.

"Please, could you take him away? He needs medical help."

"Don't be ridiculous. - Ivan smiled, cracked - He came here to kill me."

"Ivan, don't, don't talk like that, he... he will understand. - then turned to Alfred - You will, don't you?"

Alfred hissed, with a glare.

"Get out of the way. I don't want to shot you."

"I won't."

Another explosion seemed to tear the air apart, Alfred shivered, genuinely scared. Yao held closer to Ivan, whispering.

"Go away."

"I won't! - he cried, his heart felt like escaping from his chest - I love him, I won't leave him alone. I am not like everyone else."

"How can you..."

Ivan grinned.

A trigger snapped.

And then was all like years before.

He heard a gunshot. No, two.

A scream.

A cracked, desperate, scream.

Like glass shattered.

The same scream, the same voice.

And, this time, a warm gun in his hands.

* * *

Notes: Sorry if this one took me SO long. Seriously. Sorry. I had various personal problems (who said "broken heart"? yeah, that) and I felt a little sick, maybe it's the winter coming. ^^" I hope you liked this chapter and that it was not boring! This is practically the last one, the next is the epilogue... so, I hope you liked it so far. I tried to "add" more space between the lines to make it more easy to read!


	7. Chapter 7

_Epilogue - My Baby shot me down_

His feet seemed to burn on the ice, his breath was white and thick, all the screams and whispers were far away, vanished in the deep icy and blue sea.  
He felt his throat seemed torn apart.  
His voice fragile and lost.  
Shattered in all the iron pieces in the water.  
His hands trembled, trying not to let the warm paper cup of coffee on the ground.  
"Hey."  
Kiku raised his head.  
"Let's go home."  
Alfred's voice was heavy with bitterness.  
The sound of the waves was distant.  
And cold.

_He wore black and I wore white,_  
_he would always win the fight..._

A freezing wind ruffled his hair, the distant bluish moon was almost erased by the swollen clouds. He was humming, when he felt the warm, soft and smooth, little body of Elvis against his ankle.  
Alfred smile, taking him into his arms.  
"Kiku is right, baby, you are getting heavy."  
The cat protested with an offended mew, like he actually understood.  
Alfred gave a sigh.  
It wasn't exactly the healthiest of actions to stay on the balcony, in a February night, after a day of rain and coldness; but somehow he felt melancholic. Things didn't go as he expected and, still, he wasn't able to forgot.  
Sleeping had become harder.  
His dreams were always interrupted and a general, sickening, feeling of guilty and dirty. Stained all over.  
They never talked about that evening. Not a time, since that day.  
It was too harsh and too painful. And, to be completely honest, he didn't want confirms of his guilt.  
It was enough hard the doubt.  
He saw his breath becoming white, slim, ghost, like a pale flame, ascending to the dark skies. The cold winter was almost over, but still, the ice didn't melt. And the bad memories, like whispers and voices, wrapped around his heart unwilling to disappear and just let him live.  
"Can't you sleep?"  
Alfred turned.  
Gently, Kiku smiled on the doorstep. He came closer, rippling softly, "It would be better if you come to bed."  
Alfred seemed confused, maybe even dazed.  
"Why are you awake late at night?"  
"This is not something you should ask, don't you think?", he smiled, kindly.  
The blond inhaled, deeply, feeling his throat cut and dry for bitterness. He put the cat down.  
"...you hate me, don't you?"  
Kiku frowned, perplexed, "Are you in the narcotics squad, right now?"  
Alfred puffed, "Very funny."  
"Why should I hate you? - he came even more near, looking in the other men's eyes - I am not used to... you know... with someone I despise."  
The American felt like laughing for a second, but then a sour aftertaste soaked his mind and he made a choked, dark, grimace.  
"You changed, somehow, and we never talked about it."  
One of Kiku's arms crossed the body, holding the other one, he coughed slightly, lowly, the restrained pose seemed to wrap him in his own loneliness.  
"Am I no longer that interesting, don't I?"  
"You are. - Alfred corrected - I just don't know if I can trust it."  
"It what?"  
He didn't know if it was possible to be honest.  
"You seem closer. Even... happy. But if you were just acting, that would mean you are even miles away, even more distant and unhappy than before and..."  
Kiku touched Alfred's face, from the cheekbone going down to the chin, with the back of his hand. Slowly.  
"Am I not allowed to be happy?"  
Those dull eyes seemed so strong, so deep. His black holes were so sweet.  
And massive.  
And scary.  
And perfect.  
Alfred breathed in, kissing the hand, looking straight at Kiku, who was mesmerized by those dark sand, simple, tight, lips.  
"Can you? - Kiku was close to reply, but the other man didn't let him to - We never talked about what you did... for me."  
"For you?"  
"...I practically made you choose."  
Kiku gave a strange, metallic, cold, laugh, like a short rattle, a disappointed groan.  
"You didn't understand."  
Alfred yelled, touched on a raw nerve, "How can I if you don't explain me?"  
Kiku was tempted to reply, but decided not to. He simply take his hand away and returned inside, mumbling something about going to bed.  
"Well, fine! - Alfred shouted - I'll go out."  
Three minutes later he was out of the door of the building, sat down. He didn't want to be alone, actually, not at four in the morning, not in the streets looking stars. After a quarrel or a fight, Alfred was always the one to search the other: always, no exceptions.  
Not that he actually apologized, but he simply regained the other person's attention until he tendentially forgot they really argued.  
But with Kiku was not that simple.  
First, the Japanese boy was terribly rigid and dignified, so distractions didn't work, also, he used the terrible weapon of silence and ignoring him.  
How to?  
After some minutes, he heard a noise and saw a pair of sneakers.  
He recognized them and lift his head.  
"Is the step comfortable?"  
"Feli! How was today at the restaurant?"  
"Pretty good! - he sat next to him - I'll never thank your dad enough for this job."  
"Don't mention it.", Alfred cracked a smile.  
"So... - Feliciano asked - Is this... a modern evolution of being exiled to the couch?"  
"Not exactly. I came here on my own."  
"What's up? - he smiled - Tell everything to your Italian mama!"  
"It's because of that night. We never talk about it, I tried to and he got angry. And he started to say I, I!, don't understand. Can you believe it?"  
Feliciano wrinkled his forehead, "Maybe he is not ready, Al. I can't imagine doing what he did: it must have been... painful. I mean, really, painful."  
"That's why I wanted to pay him off."  
The Italian boy lowered his eyes.  
"I see..."  
"But he doesn't listen to me."  
"Alfred."  
"Yes?"  
"What happened, exactly? - he seemed embittered - You never said me everything, and seeing you happy but also... so hurt inside, I can't do anything like this. I feel like this cut me off a little, I don't want to intrude, but..."  
"It's okay! It's okay! Just-"

_"I won't! - he cried, his heart felt like escaping from his chest - I love him, I won't leave him alone. I am not like everyone else."_  
_"How can you..."_  
_Ivan fired, grinning, and the bullet, crossing Yao's shoulder, almost hit Alfred, who fell down on the ground. Gnashing his teeth, he took the gun again, but then again Yao was in between._  
_Until he heard a shot._  
_A scream crossed the air, breaking, shattering, falling into pieces._  
_A scared voice._  
_And then something wet, like a sweet, red waterfall._  
_Quickly, drops of blood, like an unexpected rain, blotted the ship's walls. Ivan trembled, horrified. His eyes were appalled._  
_He felt all his body crushed and squashed._  
_Kiku's breath was heavy, while his beating heart was like a drum, stunning and deafening his mind. Ivan clenched his teeth._  
_"How did you dare? You, little..."_  
_Kiku didn't back off._  
_He gave a look to Yao's body: the twisted, wrung, neck. The white skin into a red pool. The red silk of the dress like a bridge between reality and all what he wanted to keep close._  
_Ivan raised his gun, but he was too slow, stopped by his wounds and his horror-struck body._  
_After the second shot, Ivan was on the ground too._  
_Bleeding, close to Yao. _  
_Accidentally, they hands almost touched. Kiku felt nauseated._  
_Deeply sickened._  
_He fell on his knees, looking straight at them._  
_Alfred remained motionless. All the words and the rationality in his mind shut up._  
_Kiku saved him._  
_Killing his own brother. And then accomplishing a, at last, senseless revenge._  
_A bomb exploded in the distance, some screams again, desperate, around, woke Alfred from his paralyzed state of mind._  
_"Kiku! - he grabbed him - Kiku, we must go."_  
_The Japanese man was still, with his pupils dilated and the eyes watery, like he wasn't even able to think anything more._  
_"Kiku, Kiku! Move! Come on!", Alfred yelled._  
_The strange smell of warmth and salty water was mixed with a, sadly, deeper one. Kiku focused on Alfred, on his bomber sleeves: completely bloodstained._  
_"Kiku. - the Blond called him again - Let's go."_  
_Kiku looked again at the neck._  
_That neck he shot to._  
_That choked, strangled, fragile scream Yao made._  
_He nodded, weakly, still looking at the two corpses. Shivering._  
_Shivering so deeply inside he didn't know anymore if it was his body or his soul._

Feliciano was crying, silently, in his down jacket, self-holding and swallowing.  
"I... understand better."  
"Yes?"  
Feliciano nodded, then tried to find the energy to talk inside himself.  
"...wasn't Kiku the one who made a choice. - he whispered, biting his bottom lip - It was Yao."  
"You think that Yao deser..."  
"Oh no! - Feliciano almost gasped - Nobody deserves to die, not even Ivan. Not in that way, anyway... but... Kiku already lost his brother. He wouldn't have him back, not even sparing him, while you..."  
Alfred breathed in, realizing.  
It was so easy, right then.  
He felt so stupid and dumb, like his brain had been numb for centuries.  
"...losing you was not even imaginable."  
Alfred stood up and Feliciano smiled.  
"Please, forgive me if I abandon you here, but I really have to go!", he exclaimed.  
The Italian boy laughed and joked, "Go go! Mary Jane is waiting for you."  
Alfred nodded and rushed up the stairs.  
Yeah, Kiku was allowed to be happy.  
They were allowed to be happy. Together.  
The awful sounds of those shots disappeared in the open night sky.


End file.
